In the first four years of the LHD experiment, several encouraging results have emerged, the most significant of which is that MHD stability and good transport are compatible in the inward shifted axis configuration. The observed energy confinement at this optimal configuration is consistent with ISS95 scaling with an enhancement factor of 1.5. The confinement enhancement over the smaller heliotron devices is attributed to the high edge temperature. We find that the plasma with an average beta of 3% is stable in this configuration, even though the theoretical stability conditions of Mercier modes and pressure driven low-n modes are violated. In the low density discharges heated by NBI and ECR, internal transport barrier (ITB) and an associated high central temperature (>10 keV) are seen. The radial electric field measured in these discharges is positive (electron root) and expected to play a key role in the formation of the ITB. The positive electric field is also found to suppress the ion thermal diffusivity as predicted by neoclassical transport theory. The width of the externally imposed island is found to decrease when the plasma is collisionless with finite beta and increase when the plasma is collisional. The ICRF heating in LHD is successful and a high energy tail (up to 500 keV) has been detected for minority ion heating, demonstrating good confinement of the high energy particles. The magnetic field line structure unique to the heliotron edge configuration is confirmed by measuring the plasma density and temperature profiles on the divertor plate. A long pulse (2 min) discharge with an ICRF power of 0.4 MW has been demonstrated and the energy confinement characteristics are almost the same as those in short pulse discharges.

The structure of the radial electric field and heat transport at the magnetic island in the Large Helical Device is investigated by measuring the radial profile of poloidal flow with charge exchange spectroscopy. The convective poloidal flow inside the island is observed when the n/m=1/1 external perturbation field becomes large enough to increase the magnetic island width above a critical value (15-20% of minor radius) in LHD. This convective poloidal flow results in a non-flat space potential inside the magnetic island. The sign of the curvature of the space potential depends on the radial electric field at the boundary of the magnetic island. The heat transport inside the magnetic island is studied with a cold pulse propagation technique. The experimental results show the existence of the radial electric field shear at the boundary of the magnetic island and a reduction of heat transport inside the magnetic island

Characteristics of MHD instabilities and their impacts on plasma confinement are studied in current free plasmas of the Large Helical Device(LHD). Spontaneous L-H transition is often observed in high beta plasmas in the range of 2% averaged beta at low toroidal field (B t ≤ 0.6T). The stored energy rapidly rises by the transition, but quickly saturates due to the growth of m=2/n=3 and m=2/n=2 modes (m and n: poloidal and toroidal mode numbers) excited in the plasma edge region. Even in low beta plasmas, ELM like activities are sometimes induced in high performance plasmas with steep edge pressure gradient, and transiently reduce the stored energy by about 10%. Energetic ion driven MHD modes such as Alfven eigenmodes are studied in the very wide range of characteristic parameters: the averaged beta of energetic ions <β b// > up to 5% and the ratio of energetic ion velocity to the Alfven velocity V b// /V A up to 2.5. In addition to the observation of toroidicity induced Alfven eigenmodes (TAEs), coherent magnetic fluctuations of helicity induced Alfven eigenmodes (HAEs) have been observed for the first time in NBI heated plasmas. Transition of TAE to global Alfven eigenmode(GAE) is also observed in a discharge with temporal evolution of the rotational transform profile, having a similarity to the phenomenon in a reversed shear tokamak. At the low magnetic field, bursting TAEs transiently induce a significant loss of energetic ions, but lead to the transient improvement of bulk plasma confinement in the plasma central region.

ICRF heating in the Large Helical Device is studied applying two global simulation codes; a drift kinetic equation solver, GNET, and a wave field solver, TASK/WM. Characteristics of energetic ion distributions in the phase space are investigated changing the resonance heating position; i.e. the on-axis and off-axis heating cases. A clear peak of the energetic ion distribution can be seen in the off-axis heating case because of the stable orbit of resonant energetic ions. The simulation results are also compared with experimental results evaluating the count number of the neutral particle analyzer and a relatively good agreement is obtained.

An internal transport barrier ͑ITB͒ was observed in the electron temperature profile in the Large Helical Device ͓O. Motojima et al., Phys. Plasmas 6, 1843 ͑1999͔͒ with a centrally focused intense electron cyclotron resonance microwave heating. Inside the ITB the core electron transport was improved, and a high electron temperature, exceeding 10 keV in a low density, was achieved in a collisionless regime. The formation of the electron-ITB is correlated with the neoclassical electron root with a strong radial electric field determined by the neoclassical ambipolar flux. The direction of the tangentially injected beam-driven current has an influence on the electron-ITB formation. For the counter-injected target plasma, a steeper temperature gradient, than that for the co-injected one, was observed. As for the ion temperature, high-power NBI ͑neutral beam injection͒ heating of 9 MW has realized a central ion temperature of 5 keV with neon injection. By introducing neon gas, the NBI absorption power was increased in low-density plasmas and the direct ion heating power was much enhanced with a reduced number of ions, compared with hydrogen plasmas.