Investigation of the synergistic effects of ICRF + NBI heating in EAST plasma discharges

Following an upgrade of the neutral beam injection (NBI) system, obvious synergy between combined NBI and ion cyclotron resonance frequency (ICRF) heating was observed in recent experiments conducted at EAST. To investigate the effects of beam-ions accelerated by radiofrequency (RF) wave, analyses are performed by using TRANSP code based on the experimental results. The calculated results argue that only a small fraction of the ICRF power is absorbed by the beam ions in the ICRF + NBI synergistic heating of the (H)D plasma. To enhance the beam–RF interactions in synergistic heating and achieve high plasma performance of EAST, different experimental conditions, including multiple injection powers and diverse beam injection options, were explored. Beam injected fast ions are passing particles, trapped particles observed when synergy heating between ICRF and NBI. In particular, by varying the injection direction of the beam ions it was observed that more tangential beam yields better synergy in comparison with more perpendicular beam. The neutron emission rate of D–D fusion in tokamaks is improved and less fast ion loss is produced with tangential NBI + ICRF heating. Also, the effect of the ratio P ICRF/P NBI on ICRF + NBI combined heating is demonstrated, the higher power boosts the fusion enhancement. The study of the performed synergistic heating provides an important reference for the subsequent combined NBI + ICRF heating experiments on EAST.