Ion thermal confinement in the enhanced-confinement regime of the TFTR tokamak

Central ion temperatures up to 30 keV and rotation speeds up to 8×105 m/sec have been confirmed with new diagnostic measurements in the TFTR hot-ion enhanced-confinement regime, and the ion thermal diffusivity is found to be non-neoclassical and comparable to the anomalous electron thermal diffusivity. The dominant effect of strong rotation is the down-shifting of the neutral beam energies in the plasma frame, which results in reduced ion and electron heating on axis, and the presence of off-axis ion heating from viscous damping of the plasma rotation.