Publication at Faculty of Mathematics and Physics |
2013
Abstract
The sawtooth instability in tokamak plasmas results in periodic relaxations of the core plasma density and temperature. The physics of sawtooth is still not fully understood.
It is predicted that fusion-born alpha particles will lead to long sawteeth. However, longer sawteeth can seed other instabilities which cause further degradation of plasma confinement.
This paper provides brief introduction into sawtooth physics and observations of sawtooth instability in COMPASS. Furthermore, evidence of triggering transition to high confinement regime by sawtooth crash is presented.