Extended Scenarios Opened by the Upgrades of the RFX-Mod Experiment

Thanks to the exploitation of its advanced active control system, during 10 years of operation RFX-mod reached its target design values, offering a cross-configuration point of view for issues such as 3D physics, dynamo and self-organisation, transport barriers, turbulence, isotopic effect, density limit, plasma-wall interaction. In order to extend the explored operational scenarios, several upgrades, not involving radical machine modifications, are proposed and are presently in the design phase. This paper describes the scientific motivations and the expected improvements: reduction of residual magnetic chaos and achievement of more robust helical states in Reversed Field Pinch configuration; extension of high density regimes with a better density control; achievement of H-mode in Tokamak configuration to study ELM, sawtooth and runaway electron mitigation by magnetic perturbations; enhancement of diagnostic capability.