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Current profile tailoring by electron cyclotron heating (ECH) and current drive (ECCD) is used to improve central electron energy confinement in the TCV tokamak. Counter-ECCD on axis alone achieves this goal in a transient manner only. A stable scenario is obtained by a two-step sequence of err-axis ECH, which stabilizes magnetohydrodynamics modes, and on-axis counter-ECCD, which generates a flat or inverted current profile. This high-confinement regime, with central temperatures up to 9 keV (at a. normalized beta (N) similar to 0.6), has been sustained for the entire duration of the heating pulse, or over 200 electron energy confinement times and 5 current redistribution times.
Stefano Coda, Laurent Villard, Stephan Brunner, Justin Richard Ball, Oleg Krutkin, Luke Simons, Umesh Kumar, Baruch Rofman, Jesús Poley Sanjuán, Javier García Hernández, Matteo Vallar, Aylwin Iantchenko, Samuele Mazzi