Effects of Plasma Density and Toroidal Magnetic Field on Lower Hybrid Current Drive Efficiencv on HT-7 Tokamak

Lower hybrid current drive experiments on the HT-7 device have been carried out by scanning the following parameters: central line averaged electron density (ne = 0.6 - 2.0 × 1019m-3) and toroidal magnetic field (Bt = 1.62 - 2.0 T). The dependence of current drive efficiency on these parameters has been studied and the experimental curves of current drive efficiency as a function of ne and Bt have also been obtained. From these experimental results, it can be seen that current drive efficiency rises with the increase of toroidal magnetic field. As plasma density increases, the current drive efficiency first increases to a certain value, then gradually decreases, that is, there exists an optimized density regime where a better drive efficiency can be obtained. The analysis shows that the current drive efficiency is mainly affected by wave accessibility and impurity concentration, and the competition of these two factors determines the current drive efficiency.