Experiments at EAST demonstrate effective modulation of the stationary heat flux to the secondary lobes of the magnetic footprint induced by the resonant magnetic perturbations (RMPs) by slightly varying the equilibrium q95, consistent with prior numerical modeling. During the small q95 variation, the edge localized mode control is well maintained, and the position of the secondary heat flux peak is effectively shifted, thus avoiding a specific location heat flux accumulation. As the divertor heat load is one of the significant concerns in tokamaks, these results provide a promising choice, varying magnetic equilibrium periodically to shift stationary heat load deposition position during static n = 4 (n is the toroidal mode number) RMP condition, for further fusion devices. In this respect, the use of this technique for n = 4 RMPs is advantageous because the q95 range that needs to be covered to spread the divertor heat load is reduced due to the smaller toroidal extent of the off-separatrix heat deposition zones compared to lower n's.
This paper demonstrates a method to control the heat flux on the divertor by slightly varying the equilibrium q95 during n = 4 resonant magnetic perturbation (RMP) in the EAST tokamak. The results show that this technique can effectively shift the position of the secondary heat flux peak, avoiding localized heat accumulation while maintaining edge localized mode control. This is a promising approach for future fusion devices to manage divertor heat loads.