Overview of the ATF stellarator program.

摘要

ATF, the world's largest stellarator, has major radius R(sub 0) = 2.1 m, average plasma radius (alpha)(sub p) = 0.27 m, and on-axis field B(sub 0) = 2 T. In May 1991, an electrical arc occurred in one of the joints in a helical field (HF) winding, causing severe damage to two of the HF winding segments. A temporary repair was made and ATF resumed operation in September 1991, but operation was limited to B(sub 0) = 1 T. A set of experiments on microwave scattering, confinement scaling, and ion cyclotron heating was completed before ATF was shut down for a permanent repair in November 1991. The microwave scattering measurements of electron density fluctuations in the core of low-collisionality electron cyclotron heated (ECH) plasmas showed features that might be evidence of trapped electron instabilities.