Magnetohydrodynamic mode identification from magnetic probe signals via a matched filter method

A matched filter analysis has been developed to identify the amplitude and phase of magnetohydrodynamic modes in DIII-D tokamak plasmas using magnetic probe signals (deltaB(p)). As opposed to conventional Fourier spatial analysis of toroidally spaced probes, this analysis includes data from both toroidally and poloidally spaced magnetic probe arrays. Using additional probes both improves the statistics of the analysis and more importantly incorporates poloidal information into the mode analysis. The matched filter is a numeric filter that matches signals from the magnetic probes with numerically predicted signals for the mode. The numerical predictions are developed using EFIT equilibrium reconstruction data as input to the stability code GATO and the vacuum field code VACUUM. Changes is the plasma equilibrium that occur on the same time scale as the mode are taken into account by modeling simple matched filter vectors corresponding to changes in total plasma current, plus vertical and horizontal plasma shifts. The matched filter method works well when there is good understanding of a mode and good modeling of its structure. Matched filter analysis results for a fast growing ideal kink mode, where equilibrium change effects are minimal, show the effectiveness of this method. A slow growing resistive-wall mode (RWM) is also analyzed using the matched filter method. The method gives good results for identifying the amplitude and phase of the RWM but the simple equilibrium vectors are insufficient for complete elimination of equilibrium changes on this time scale. An analysis of the computational requirements of the scheme indicates that real-time application of the matched filter for RWM identification will be possible. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.