The measurement of the poloidal beta in the LT-3 Tokamak

The measurement of the poloidal beta of a Tokamak plasma by the so-called diamagnetic effect has several attractive features. In principle it provides a continuous measure of the total transverse plasma energy throughout a single discharge in contrast to pulsed techniques, such as laser scattering, which give a measurement at a single instant and require many shots to give a complete profile. This makes the diamagnetic measurement particularly attractive for studying transient, and sometimes irreproducible, phenomena such as the disruptive instability. Its results have been shown to be consistent with other methods in stable discharges.