Recent progress in fast ion studies on JET

This paper presents recent results on fast ion studies on JET. A set of diagnostics for both confined and lost fast ions was employed for investigating the response of fast ions to MHD modes and for studying their behaviour in plasmas with toroidal field ripple and in shear-reversed plasmas. A dependence of the losses on MHD mode amplitude was deduced from the experimental data. A study of various plasma scenarios has shown that a significant redistribution of the fast ions happens during changes in the profile of the safety factor from shear-reversed to monotonic. Significant changes in the losses of ICRH accelerated protons were found to be associated with L–H confinement transitions in plasmas. After an L–H transition, an abrupt decrease in the ICRH proton losses was observed. In plasmas with an internal transport barrier, the loss of ICRH accelerated ions was found to increase as the barrier forms. Further results concerning fast ion losses were obtained during JET experiments in which the magnitude of the TF ripple was varied. The ripple losses of fusion products appear similar to classical losses, and are in agreement with modelling.