Recurrent bursting energetic-particle modes (EPMs) are observed in an l = 2 helical plasma heated by second harmonic electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) without neutral beam injection. The observed instabilities are characterized by a rapid frequency downshift, propagating in the ion-diamagnetic drift direction. Such bursting MHD instabilities are seen only in fairly low-density plasmas with off-axis second harmonic ECRH. A soft x-ray detector operating in the counting mode indicates that there exist suprathermal electrons in low-density ECRH plasmas where EPMs are destabilized. The excitation of EPMs is supposed to be due to the helically trapped suprathermal electrons produced by the second harmonic ECRH.
Parametric decay instabilities near the second-harmonic upper hybrid resonance in fusion plasmas