A high power experimental traveling wave antenna for fast wave heating and current drive in DIII-D and relevance to ITER

The impact of a contemplated conversion of the directly driven high power antenna arrays in DIII-D to externally tuned and coupled traveling wave antennas (TWAs) is evaluated based on empirical modeling, computer simulation and low power experiments. A regime of operation is predicted within the TWA passband in which the reflected power from the TWA approaches 0.1% during the ELM-free H-mode. Furthermore, this reflected power does not exceed 1% and the optimum phase velocity produced by the TWA decreases less than 5% during ELMs. This resilient operating regime is phase shifted using external tuning stubs, thus providing considerable experimental flexibility. Over 90% plasma coupling efficiency is achieved by recovering the TWA output power using a novel traveling wave recirculator. Combining the above attributes with efficient plasma coupling even at large antenna-plasma distances and the lack of need for dynamic tuning, TWAs appear to offer great promise for ITER