Neutral Beam Ion Confinement in NSTX

Neutral-beam (NB) heating in the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) began in September 2000 using up to 5 MW of 80 keV deuterium (D) beams. An initial assessment of beam ion confinement has been made using neutron detectors, a neutral particle analyzer (NPA), and a Faraday cup beam ion loss probe. Preliminary neutron results indicate that confinement may be roughly classical in quiescent discharges, but the probe measurements do not match a classical loss model. MHD activity, especially reconnection events (REs) causes substantial disturbance of the beam ion population