An experimental and computational study of compact torus formation, decay and heating in the Berkeley Compact Torus Experiment

A spheromak type compact torus (CT) plasma is investigated by studies of the gun type plasma formation mechanism and from the characteristics of the magnetic decay following the establishment of a CT equilibrium in the flux conserver. Radiofrequency heating in the lower hybrid range (432 MHz) is used to study the electron heat confinement using a 20 MW, 100 ms power pulse. While electron temperatures up to 200 eV have been measured with RF heating, the impact on magnetic decay from the RF heating is relatively weak. A simple model based upon parallel electron heat transport along stochastic magnetic field lines gives a scaling law for magnetic decay which fits the experimental data. Results of two dimensional MHD code calculations are given which match many details of the experimentally observed formation physics.