ITER-like Discharge Development in Alcator C-Mod

Demonstrating discharges on Alcator C-Mod with ITER characteristics is important to study plasma behavior during various phases and validate modeling used to project to ITER. Concentration has been on the rampup and rampdown phases. The flattop phase must meet, as close as possible, a number of parameters simultaneously; q95, elongation, n/nGr, beta-N, and H98. Experiments were performed to meet these parameters, lowering the toroidal field to 2.7 T and using 2$^{nd}$ harmonic hydrogen minority heating. The lower field allowed more reliable access to these parameters. These discharges meet the ITER parameters closely, with the n/nGr value reaching 0.72 approaching the ITER value of 0.85, and were sustained for 0.5 to 1 s. EDA H-modes were obtained, showing the quasi-coherent mode at about 100 kHz, with some intermittent ELMy behavior. In addition, MHD modes are observed in the 10-25 kHz range with toroidal mode numbers n=2,3, which appear to be correlated with increasing betaN. Work supported by DE-AC02-09CH11466 and DE-FC02-99ER54512.