We report on the observation of a large production of runaway electrons during a disruptive termination of discharges heated with lower-hybrid waves at the Frascati Tokamak Upgrade. The runaway current plateaus, which can carry up to 80% of the predisruptive current, are observed more often than in normal Ohmic disruptions. The largest runaway currents correspond to the slowest plasma current decay rates. This trend is opposite to what is observed in most tokamaks. We attribute this anomalous behavior to the acceleration of the preexistent wave-resonant suprathermal electrons during the disruption decay phase. These results could be relevant for the operation of the ITER tokamak whenever a sizeable amount of lower-hybrid power is made available.

• Received 26 July 2006

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.165002