Chirping instabilities produced by a runaway electron beam at a spherical tokamak

Two different types of MHD instabilities with rapidly chirping frequency were found to arise in the Globus-M2 spherical tokamak in substantially different frequency ranges.The first type arises at frequencies of an order of 1 MHz in ohmic plasmas at relatively low density＜2 ×1019 m-3 in a wide range of toroidal magnetic fields and plasma currents.This type of instability was identified as compressional Alfvén waves,driven by electrons,accelerated during a sawtooth crush.It was found that the mode frequency is sweeping in time,according to the Berk-Breizman hole-clump nonlinear chirping model.The second type of wave arises in a specific single-swing regime of the central solenoid current with a very narrow plasma column,when the plasma tends to decay at extremely low density＜2 × 1018 m-3 and,in fact,is an instability of the runaway electron beam.The exited modes cover the whole observed frequency range and are divided into several(two or three)frequency regions:approximately 0-30 MHz,60-120 MHz and sometimes 30-60 MHz.Reconnection of the branches was also observed.Single chirps are more rapid than for 1 MHz Alfvén instability and follow an exponential law.This paper,to our knowledge,is the first report of frequency chirping instabilities excited by accelerated electrons at a spherical tokamak.