A multichannel microwave interferometer system has been developed on the HL-2A tokomak. Its working frequency is well designed to avoid the fringe jump effect. Taking the structure of HL-2A into account, its antennas are installed in the horizontal direction, i.e. one launcher in high field side (HFS) and four receivers in low field side (LFS). The fan-shaped measurement area covers those regions where the magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) instabilities are active. The heterodyne technique contributes to its high temporal resolution (1 µs). It is possible for the multichannel system to realize simultaneous measurements of density and its fluctuation. The quadrature phase detection based on the zero-crossing method is introduced to density measurement. With this system, reliable line-averaged densities and density profiles are obtained. The location of the saturated internal kink mode can be figured out from the mode showing different intensities on four channels, and the result agrees well with that measured by electron cyclotron emission imaging (ECEI).

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A multichannel methanoic acid (HCOOH, λ = 432.5 µm) laser interferometer/polarimeter is being developed from the previous eight-channel hydrogen cyanide (HCN, λ=337 µm) laser interferometer in the HL-2A tokamak. A conventional Michelson-type interometer is used for the electron density measurement, and a Dodel-Kunz-type polarimeter is used for the Faraday rotation effect measurement, respectively. Each HCOOH laser can produce a linearly polarized radiation at a power lever of ∼30 mW, and a power stability <10% in 50 min. A beam waist (diameter d0 ≈12.0 mm, about 200 mm away from the outlet) is finally determined through a chopping modulation technique. The latest optical layout of the interferometer/polarimeter has been finished, and the hardware data processing system based on the fast Fourier transform phasecomparator technique is being explored. In order to demonstrate the feasibility of the diagnostic scheme, two associated bench simulation experiments were carried out in the laboratory, in which the plasma was simulated by a piece of polytetrafluoroethene plate, and the Faraday rotation effect was simulated by a rotating half-wave plate. Simulation results agreed well with the initial experimental conditions. At present, the HCOOH laser interferometer/polarimeter system is being assembled on HL-2A, and is planned to be applied in the 2014-2015 experimental campaign.

HL-2A plasmas heated by neutral beam injection (NBI) regularly exhibit n = 1 long-lived saturated magnetohydrodynamic instabilities. A reduction in the electron density and plasma stored energy and an increase in fast ion losses are usually observed in the presence of such perturbations. The observed long-lived saturated internal mode (LLM) occurs when the safety factor profile has a weak shear in a broad range of the plasma centre with qmin around unity. It is found that the ideal interchange mode can become marginally stable due to the weak magnetic shear reaching a critical value. The LLM, due to its pressure-driven feature, is destabilized by the strong interaction with fast ions in the low-shear region during the NBI. Furthermore, for the first time it is clearly observed that the LLMs can be suppressed by electron cyclotron resonant heating (ECRH), or by supersonic molecular beam injection in HL-2A plasmas. Low-n sidebands observed during the LLM are also suppressed by increasing the ECRH power. The control of LLMs is due to the change in the magnetic shear or in the pressure profile induced by the local heating or fuelling.

Impurity transports in two neighboring discharges with and without electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) are studied in the HL-2A tokamak by laser blow-off (LBO) technique. The progression of aluminium ions as the trace impurity is monitored by soft x-ray (SXR) and bolometer detector arrays with good temporal and spatial resolutions. Obvious difference in the time trace of the signal between the Ohmic and ECRH L-mode discharges is observed. Based on the numerical simulation with one-dimensional (1D) impurity transport code STRAHL, the radial profiles of impurity diffusion coefficient D and convective velocity V are obtained for each shot. The result shows that the diffusion coefficient D significantly increases throughout the plasma minor radius for the ECRH case with respect to the Ohmic case, and that the convection velocity V changes from negative (inward) for the Ohmic case to partially positive (outward) for the ECRH case. The result on HL-2A confirms the pump out effect of ECRH on impurity profile as reported on various other devices.