Energetic Particle Experiments in JT-60U and Their Implications for a Fusion Reactor

Energetic particle experiments in JT-60U are summarized, mainly covering ripple loss and Alfvén eigenmodes (AE modes). Significant loss was observed for 85 keV neutral beam injected (NBI) ions and fusion-produced tritons as toroidal field ripple at the plasma surface increased, especially in a reversed shear plasma. Measurement of hot spots on the first wall due to ripple loss confirmed agreement with code predictions, validating the modeling incorporated in an orbit-following Monte Carlo code. A variety of AE modes were destabilized in ion cyclotron range of frequencies (ICRF) minority heating and negative-ion-based NBI (N-NBI) heating. Most of the observed modes are gap modes identified to be toroidicity-induced, ellipticity-induced, and triangularity-induced AE modes. An interesting finding is pulsating modes accompanying frequency sweep, which were destabilized by N-NBI and sometimes induced a beam ion loss of up to 25%. Also presented are energetic particle issues in auxiliary heating with ICRF and N-NBI.