Thermal transport in hydrogen plasmas at high T_e/T_i in DIII-D relevant to ITER PFPO-1

A recent L-mode isotope experiment for ITER pre-fusion power operation achieved high T_e/T_i in hydrogen plasmas for transport model validation and predictions for ITER PFPO-1. Using recent improvements to TGLF we show the ability to predict the T_e, T_i and n_e profiles approaching very close to the separatrix ρ~0.95, previously limited to ρ~0.8. The ITER research plan at ⅓ field will use 3rd harmonic electron cyclotron heating (ECH) that is sensitive to T_e for absorption and rely on electron-ion coupling to access H-mode. DIII-D experiments with high hydrogen purity (~90%) have varied the plasma density to change T_e/T_i through electron-ion exchange, and added up to 1.6 MW of central ECH achieving core T_e/T_i~1-3.5 and the same power per area as ITER with 20-30 MW ECH. TRANSP and new H/D measurement using main-ion CER are used to determine ion composition and power flows. Simulations using a new version of TGLF that incorporates improved geometry, collisions and calibrated against CGYRO shows TGLF captures the core temperature profiles well and much closer to the plasma separatrix than the original saturation rule in TGLF due to higher stiffness in the new model.