Correlation ECE diagnostic in Alcator C-Mod

¹ Plasma Science and Fusion Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02139, USA
² Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Princeton, New Jersey 08543, USA

^a e-mail: sck83@mit.edu

Published online: 12 March 2015

Abstract

Correlation ECE (CECE) is a diagnostic technique that allows measurement of small amplitude electron temperature, T_e, fluctuations through standard cross-correlation analysis methods. In Alcator C-Mod, a new CECE diagnostic has been installed[Sung RSI 2012], and interesting phenomena have been observed in various plasma conditions. We find that local T_e fluctuations near the edge (ρ ~ 0:8) decrease across the linearto- saturated ohmic confinement transition, with fluctuations decreasing with increasing plasma density[Sung NF 2013], which occurs simultaneously with rotation reversals[Rice NF 2011]. T_e fluctuations are also reduced across core rotation reversals with an increase of plasma density in RF heated L-mode plasmas, which implies that the same physics related to the reduction of T_e fluctuations may be applied to both ohmic and RF heated L-mode plasmas. In I-mode plasmas, we observe the reduction of core T_e fluctuations, which indicates changes of turbulence occur not only in the pedestal region but also in the core across the L/I transition[White NF 2014]. The present CECE diagnostic system in C-Mod and these experimental results are described in this paper.