Experiments with high-energy deuterium neutral beam (NB) injection were performed on the HL-2A tokamak. To obtain information on NB deposition and the slowing down of beam ions in HL-2A plasmas, very short-pulse deuterium NB injection, or the so-called 'blip' injection, was applied to MHD-quiescent ohmic deuterium plasmas. Analysis of neutron decay following the NB 'blip' injection indicates that tangentially injected beam ions are well confined, slowing down classically in the HL-2A tokamak. In contrast to the MHD-quiescent plasma, anomalous losses of beam ions were observed when a core-localized mode with a frequency up-chirping from 15 to 40 kHz appeared in the plasma. The core-localized mode was identified as a beta-induced Alfvén acoustic (BAAE) mode by its frequency sweeping behaviour and numerical calculation. Such a high energetic particle driven mode led to fast-ion loss, showing the strong influence of the core-localized fast-ion-driven BAAE mode on the fast-ion transport. Furthermore, a clear frequency splitting was first observed on the Alfvén-acoustic-type mode, and is found to be strongly linked to the effect of resonant wave–particle interaction, providing further insights into how frequency splitting structures are generated in the plasma.
Observation of Alfvén Eigenmodes driven by off-axis neutral beam injection in the TCV tokamak