Observations of toroidicity-induced Alfvén eigenmodes in a reversed field pinch plasma

High frequency peaks in the spectra of magnetic field signals have been detected at the edge of Extrap-T2R [P. R. Brunsell, H. Bergsaker, M. Cecconello, J. R. Drake, R. M. Gravestijn, A. Hedqvist, and J.-A. Malmberg, Plasma Phys. Controlled Fusion, 43, 1457 (2001)]. The measured fluctuation is found to be mainly polarized along the toroidal direction, with high toroidal periodicity n and Alfvenic scaling (f∝B∕mini). Calculations for a reversed field pinch plasma predict the existence of an edge resonant, high frequency, high-n number toroidicity-induced Alfven eigenmode with the observed frequency scaling. In addition, gas puffing experiments show that edge density fluctuations are responsible for the rapid changes of mode frequency. Finally a coupling with the electron drift turbulence is proposed as drive mechanism for the eigenmode.