Abstract
The high-power reconnection heating of spherical tokamak (ST) has been studied in the TS-3 experiment by use of axial merging of two STs. In this method, the merging/ magnetic reconnection transformed a part of magnetic energy of merging STs into their thermal energy within short reconnection time. Our present low-field merging (0.3-0.5kG, R-0.2m) attained the maximum heating power of 4-10MW and increased the beta-values of STs by factor 2-3 transiently. The ion heating energy was found to increase inversely with the q-value (Bt component) of two STs. The most probable cause for this dependence is fast reconnection speed/ outflow speed due to large anomalous resistivity of current sheet in low-q state. After merging startup, decrease in beta was observed especially in low-q STs, indicating that the final beta value of ST increased with the q-value.
