The discharge scenario of high temperature plasma with a helical configuration has significantly progressed. The increase of central ion temperature due to the reduction of wall recycling was clearly observed. The peaking of the ion heating profile and the reduction of charge exchange loss of energetic ions play an important role for further improvement of ion heat transport in the ion internal transport barrier (ITB) core. The ion ITB and electron ITB have been successfully integrated due to the superposition of centrally focused electron cyclotron heating to the ion ITB plasma, and the high temperature regime of the ion temperature comparable to the electron temperature (Ti ~ Te) has been significantly extended. The width of the ion ITB formed with electron ITB is wider than the width of electron ITB. The positive radial electric field was observed in the integrated ITB plasma by a heavy ion beam probe, while the negative radial electric field was observed in ion ITB plasmas. The ion temperature gradient decreases with the increase of the temperature ratio (Te /Ti).
Experimental study of hot ion modes on the HL-2A tokamak