The use of internal transport barriers in tokamak plasmas

Internal transport barriers (ITBs) can provide high tokamak confinement at modest plasma current. This is desirable for operation with most of the current driven non-inductively by the bootstrap mechanism, as currently envisaged for steady-state power plants. Maintaining such plasmas in steady conditions with high plasma purity is challenging, however, due to MHD instabilities and impurity transport effects. Significant progress has been made in the control of ITB plasmas: the pressure profile has been varied using the barrier location; q-profile modification has been achieved with non-inductive current drive, and means have been found to affect density peaking and impurity accumulation. All these features are, to some extent, interdependent and must be integrated self-consistently to demonstrate a sound basis for extrapolation to future devices.