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Updated: Mar 30, 2026

Magnetically Induced Rotating Rayleigh-Taylor Instability
Published on: March 3, 2017
Avoiding Tokamak Disruptions by Applying Static Magnetic Fields That Align Locked Modes with Stabilizing Wave-Driven
F A Volpe1, A Hyatt2, R J La Haye2
1Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, USA.
Abstract:
Nonrotating ("locked") magnetic islands often lead to complete losses of confinement in tokamak plasmas, called major disruptions. Here locked islands were suppressed for the first time, by a combination of applied three-dimensional magnetic fields and injected millimeter waves. The applied fields were used to control the phase of locking and so align the island O point with the region where the injected waves generated noninductive currents. This resulted in stabilization of the locked island, disruption avoidance, recovery of high confinement, and high pressure, in accordance with the expected dependencies upon wave power and relative phase between the O point and driven current.
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