In the large helical device, plasma with more than 4% average beta was successfully produced by multi-pellet injections in a regime with a collisionality one order of magnitude lower than that in previous high-beta operations. An improvement in particle confinement was observed during a high-beta discharge produced by a gas puff, and particle flux to the divertor was reduced by more than 40%. High instabilities at the plasma edge occurred and suppressed the increment of the average beta to 3.4%. A spontaneous change in the magnetic topology contributes to an increase in the average beta value while triggering the excitation of edge MHD instabilities.
Studies of currentless, high-beta plasma in the Heliotron E device