Perspectives gained from ICRF physics studies on TFTR

The physics of ICRF heating and current drive has been studied on TFTR for over a decade. Following the early low power coupling studies, high power experiments resulted in sawtooth stabilization, the first observation of RF-driven excitation of toroidal Alfven eigenmodes, and the discovery of a mode conversion scenario for localized off-axis electron heating. The program culminated with the first studies of high power ICRF heating and profile control in tritium-rich high performance plasmas. A significant part of the concluding experiments centered on the potential of ICRF to drive sheared flows in order to suppress turbulence in the plasma core. Initial measurements taken with a novel poloidal velocity diagnostic suggest that localized sheared poloidal flows can be driven with ion Bernstein waves excited directly or else via mode conversion from a propagating fast magnetosonic wave. In this paper, recent results from TFTR on wave-based profile control techniques will be summarized along with suggestions for future studies elsewhere