Observation of clump structure in transported particle orbit using an upgraded neutral particle analyzer during TAE burst in LHD.

Toroidal Alfvén eigenmode (TAE) bursts are often observed in relatively low-magnetic-field experiments in the Large Helical Device (LHD) with tangential nuclear beam injection. During TAE bursts, hole-clump pairs in real space were observed in previous studies. In order to observe the behavior of the energetic particles during TAE bursts in more detail, a tangential E-parallel-B-type neutral particle analyzer (E||B-NPA) was upgraded to improve the time resolution up to 100 kilo samples per second by updating its measurement electronic circuits. Using this high time resolution E||B-NPA, the clump formations are clearly observed in real space. In order to analyze the observed particles with high time resolution, the conditional averaging technique is used. The lost energetic particles with 150 keV were initially observed just before the TAE burst, and the energy decreases faster than the classical slowing down time. The energetic particles transported by the TAE burst were detected with energy slowing down time of 6–8 ms for more than 6 ms after the TAE burst had finished. According to the orbit trace code Lorentz orbit (LORBIT) calculation, the particle pitch angle and radial location (ρ = r/a₉₉) of the energetic particles resonating with the TAE mode frequency are increased by 5° and 0.2, respectively, during TAE bursts. These results are consistent with the observed downward frequency chirping of the magnetic fluctuation. By comparing the energy of the detected particles by E||B-NPA and the corresponding frequency of the magnetic fluctuation, the pitch angles of the resonant particles are considered to be 15°–25° at 150 keV before they are transported by the TAE burst. The frequency chirping of the magnetic fluctuation shows good agreement with the observed clump structure by considering the pitch angle of the resonant particles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]