Study of MHD activities in the plasma of SST-1

• An account of MHD activity in the plasma of SST-1
• Observation of MHD instabilities with mode m = 2, n = 1 in SST-1 plasma.
• MHD instabilities study of characteristic growth time, growth rate of island and island width etc. in SST-1 plasma.

Steady State Superconducting Tokamak (SST-1) is a medium size Tokamak in operation at the Institute for Plasma Research, India. SST-1 has been consistently producing plasma currents in excess of 60 kA, with plasma durations above 400 ms and a central magnetic field of 1.5 T over last few experimental campaigns of 2014. Investigation of these experimental data suggests the presence of MHD activity in the SST-1 plasma. Further analysis clearly explains the behavior of MHD instabilities observed (i.e. tearing modes with m = 2, n = 1), estimating the growth rate and the island width in the SST-1 plasma. Poloidal magnetic field and Toroidal magnetic field fluctuations in SST-1 are observed using Mirnov coils. Onsets of disruptions in connection with MHD activities have been correlated with other diagnostics such as ECE, Density and Hα etc. The observations have been cross compared with the theoretical calculations and are found to be in good agreement.