Destabilization of fast particle stabilized sawteeth in ASDEX Upgrade with electron cyclotron current drive

It is often observed that large sawteeth trigger the neoclassical tearing mode well below the usual threshold for this instability. At the same time, fast particles in the plasma core stabilize sawteeth and provide these large crashes. The paper presents results of first experiments in ASDEX Upgrade for destabilization of fast particle stabilized sawteeth with electron cyclotron current drive (ECCD).

It is shown that moderate ECCD from a single gyrotron is able to destabilize the fast particle stabilized sawteeth. A reduction in sawtooth period by about 40% was achieved in first experiments. These results show that ECCD can be used as a tool for control of sawteeth also in the presence of fast particles.