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Toroidicity-induced Alfven eigenmode (TAE) stability in the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) [S. M. Kaye, M. Ono, Y.-K. M. Peng et al., Fusion Technol. 36, 16 (1999)] is analyzed using the improved NOVA-K code [N. N. Gorelenkov, C. Z. Cheng, and G. Y. Fu, Phys. Plasmas 6, 2802 (1999)], which includes finite orbit width and Larmor radius effects and is able to predict the saturation amplitude for the mode using the quasilinear theory. A broad spectrum of unstable global TAEs with different toroidal mode numbers is predicted. Due to the strong poloidal field and the presence of the magnetic well in NSTX, better particle confinement in the presence of TAEs in comparison with tokamaks is illustrated making use of the ORBIT code [R. B. White and M. S. Chance, Phys. Fluids 27, 2455 (1984)].

Stability criterion for neoclassical tearing modes is obtained from the drift kinetic equation. A finite amplitude of a magnetic island is required for mode excitation. The threshold is determined by the ratio of the transversal and the parallel transport near the island when the flattening of the pressure profile eliminates the bootstrap current. A number of supershots from the database of the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR) [D. J. Grove and D. M. Meade, Nucl. Fusion 25, 1167 (1985)] are compared with the theory. In cases where the modes were observed in experiment the stability criterion was violated.

Integrated simulations of tokamak discharges typically rely on classical physics to model energetic particle (EP) dynamics. However, there are numerous cases in which energetic particles can suffer additional transport that is not classical in nature. Examples include transport by applied 3D magnetic perturbations and, more notably, by plasma instabilities. Focusing on the effects of instabilities,ad-hocmodels can empirically reproduce increased transport, but the choice of transport coefficients is usually somehow arbitrary. New approaches based on physics-based reduced models are being developed to address those issues in a simplified way, while retaining a more correct treatment of resonant wave-particle interactions. The kick model implemented in the tokamaktransport code TRANSP is an example of such reduced models. It includes modifications of the EP distribution by instabilities in real and velocity space, retaining correlations between transport in energy and space typical of resonant EP transport. The relevance of EP phase space modifications by instabilities is first discussed in terms of predicted fast ion distribution. Results are compared with those from a simple, ad-hoc diffusive model. It is then shown that the phase-space resolved model can also provide additional insight into important issues such as internal consistency of the simulations and mode stability through the analysis of the power exchanged between energetic particles and the instabilities.

Energetic ion transport due to microturbulence is investigated in magnetohydrodynamic-quiescent plasmas by way of neutral beam injection in the DIII-D tokamak [J. L. Luxon, Nucl. Fusion 42, 614 (2002)]. A range of on-axis and off-axis beam injection scenarios are employed to vary relevant parameters such as the character of the background microturbulence and the value of E b / T e, where Eb is the energetic ion energy and Te the electron temperature. In all cases, it is found that any transport enhancement due to microturbulence is too small to observe experimentally. These transport effects are modeled using numerical and analytic expectations that calculate the energetic ion diffusivity due to microturbulence. It is determined that energetic ion transport due to coherent fluctuations (e.g., Alfvén eigenmodes) is a considerably larger effect and should therefore be considered more important for ITER. © 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.