A variety of RF experiments are being conducted on PLT in order to explore RF techniques which could improve Tokamak performance parameters. Of special importance are the studies of ion Bernstein wave (IBW) heating, lower hybrid MHD stabilization and electron heating, down-shifted electron cyclotron heating, and fast wave current drive. Ion Bernstein wave heating results at modest power indicate that the particle confinement time could be enhanced relative to that for fast wave heating in the ion cyclotron range of frequencies (ICRF) and neutral beam heating. At these power levels a conclusive determination of energy confinement scaling with power cannot yet be given. Central sawtooth and m=1 MHD stabilization is being obtained with centrally peaked lower hybrid (LH) current drive and the central electron temperature is peaking to values ( approximately 5 keV) well outside the bounds of 'profile consistency'. In this case the electron energy confinement is apparently increased relative to the ohmic value.
Lower hybrid electron cyclotron heating and associated parallel cooling