Control Issues Related to Start-Up of Tokamaks

Developing robust and reproducible start-up scenarios is essential for all tokamaks and especially for burning plasma devices. A tokamak start-up sequence is complex and calls on control of different types of plasmas, from nearly collisionless low-temperature electrons in a large neutral background to a more conventional diverted high-temperature fully ionized plasma during the ramp-up phase. [first paragraph from extended abstract]