Resistive wall mode stabilization in slowly rotating high beta plasmas

Abstract

DIII-D experiments show that the resistive wall mode (RWM) can remain stable in high beta scenarios despite a low net torque from nearly balanced neutral beam injection heating. The minimization of magnetic field asymmetries is essential for operation at the resulting low plasma rotation of less than 20 krad s(-1) (measured with charge exchange recombination spectroscopy using C vi emission) corresponding to less than 1% of the Alfven velocity or less than 10% of the ion thermal velocity. In the presence of n=1 field asymmetries the rotation required for stability is significantly higher and depends on the torque input and momentum confinement, which suggests that a loss of torque-balance can lead to an effective rotation threshold above the linear RWM stability threshold. Without an externally applied field the measured rotation can be too low to neglect the diamagnetic rotation. A comparison of the instability onset in plasmas rotating with and against the direction of the plasma current indicates the importance of the toroidal flow driven by the radial electric field in the stabilization process. Observed rotation thresholds are compared with predictions for the semi-kinetic damping model, which generally underestimates the rotation required for stability. A more detailed modeling of kinetic damping including diamagnetic and precession drift frequencies can lead to stability without plasma rotation. However, even with corrected error fields and fast plasma rotation, plasma generated perturbations, such as edge localized modes, can nonlinearly destabilize the RWM. In these cases feedback control can increase the damping of the magnetic perturbation and is effective in extending the duration of high beta discharges.