FLUCTUATION AND TRANSPORT REDUCTION IN A REVERSED-FIELD PINCH BY INDUCTIVE POLOIDAL CURRENT DRIVE

An auxiliary poloidal inductive electric field applied to a reversed f ield pinch plasma reduces the current density gradient, slows the grow th of m=1 tearing fluctuations, suppresses their associated sawteeth, and doubles the energy confinement time. Small sawteeth occur in the i mproved state but with m=0 precursors. By requiring a change of toroid al flux embedding the plasma, inductive poloidal current profile drive is transient, but the improvement encourages the program of reversed field pinch transport suppression using current profile control.