Numerical study on the stabilization of neoclassical tearing modes by electron cyclotron current drive

It is well known that electron cyclotron current drive (ECCD) around the o-point of magnetic island along the plasma current direction can stabilize neoclassical tearing modes (NTMs) in tokamak devices. The effects of the radial misalignment between the island and the driven current, the phase misalignment, and the on-duty ratio for modulated current drive on NTM stabilization are studied numerically in this paper. A small radial misalignment is found to significantly decrease the stabilizing effect. When a sufficiently large phase misalignment occurs for the modulated ECCD, the stabilization effect is also reduced a lot. The optimal on-duty ratio of modulated ECCD to stabilize NTMs is found to be in the range of 60%-70%. A larger on-duty ratio than 50% could also mitigate the effect of phase misalignment if it is not too large. There is no benefit from modulation if the phase misalignment is larger than a threshold. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.