Interpretation of electromagnetic modes in the sub-TAE frequency range in JET plasmas with elevated monotonic q-profiles

Recent JET deuterium experiments with an advanced tokamak scenario using an internal transport barrier (ITB) have been performed to clearly observe destabilized toroidicity-induced Alfven eigenmodes (TAEs) by fast ions; interestingly, these also exhibit unstable electromagnetic (EM) perturbations in the sub-TAE frequency range. We identify such EM perturbations to be beta-induced ion temperature gradient (BTG) eigenmodes and not beta-induced Alfven eigenmodes nor beta-induced Alfven acoustic eigenmodes, which are often unstable in such high-beta plasmas with high-power neutral beam injection (NBI). The BTG modes are the most unstable modes due to the high thermal ion temperature gradient related to the ITB, high thermal ion temperature compared to thermal electron temperature (high T i / T e), and a high ion beta regime. BTG mode experimental characteristics match the analytical theory, i.e., location in the vicinity of a rational magnetic surface with a low magnetic shear, mode frequency scaling with the ion diamagnetic frequency ( omega i *), and a coupling among Alfven and drift waves. We also perform linear gyrokinetic simulations with validated plasma profiles and equilibrium, and find a mode kinetically driven by thermal ions with similar characteristics as the experimental BTG modes.

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2021
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https://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/290142?ln=en

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