Low-confinement mode (L-mode)

L-mode

The ordinary operating regime of a magnetically confined plasma, without the edge pedestal and roughly doubled confinement of H-mode. Every tokamak runs in L-mode at low heating power and enters H-mode only above a heating threshold. Not every plasma that is not in H-mode is in L-mode: other improved regimes exist, such as the 'supershots' used for many of TFTR's best results and plasmas with a barrier to heat loss deep inside them (an internal transport barrier). The regime of a figure should therefore come from its source, not be assumed.

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