A. Di Siena

Non-Maxwellian background effects in gyrokinetic simulations with GENE

The interaction between fast particles and core turbulence has been established as a central issue for a tokamak reactor. Recent results predict significant enhancement of electromagnetic stabilisation of ITG turbulence in the presence of fast ions. However, most of these simulations were performed with the assumption of equivalent Maxwellian distributed particles, whereas to rigorously model fast ions, a non-Maxwellian background distribution function is needed. To this aim, the underlying equations in the gyrokinetic code GENE have been re-derived and implemented for a completely general background distribution function. After verification studies, a previous investigation on a particular JET plasma has been revised with linear simulations. The plasma is composed by Deuterium, electron, Carbon impurities, NBI fast Deuterium and ICRH 3 He. Fast particle distributions have been modelled with a number of different analytic choices in order to study the impact of non-Maxwellian distributions on the plasma turbulence: slowing down and anisotropic Maxwellian. Linear growth rates are studied as a function of the wave number and compared with those obtained using an equivalent Maxwellian. Generally, the choice of the 3 He distribution seems to have a stronger impact on the microinstabilities than that of the fast Deuterium.

Influence of collisions on parametric instabilities induced by lower hybrid waves in tokamak plasmas

Parametric instabilities induced at the plasma edge by lower hybrid wave power externally coupled to tokamak plasmas have, via broadening of the antenna spectrum, strong influence on the power deposition and current drive in the core. For modeling the parametric instabilities at the tokamak plasma edge in lower hybrid current drive experiments, the effect of the collisions has been neglected so far. In the present work, a specific collisional parametric dispersion relation, useful to analyze these nonlinear phenomena near the lower hybrid antenna mouth, is derived for the first time, based on a kinetic model. Numerical solutions show that in such cold plasma regions the collisions prevent the onset of the parametric instabilities. This result is important for present lower hybrid current drive experiments, as well as in fusion reactor scenarios.

Non-Maxwellian fast particle effects in gyrokinetic GENE simulations

Fast ions have recently been found to significantly impact and partially suppress plasma turbulence both in experimental and numerical studies in a number of scenarios. Understanding the underlying physics and identifying the range of their beneficial effect is an essential task for future fusion reactors, where highly energetic ions are generated through fusion reactions and external heating schemes. However, in many of the gyrokinetic codes fast ions are, for simplicity, treated as equivalent-Maxwellian-distributed particle species, although it is well known that to rigorously model highly non-thermalised particles, a non-Maxwellian background distribution function is needed. To study the impact of this assumption, the gyrokinetic code GENE has recently been extended to support arbitrary background distribution functions which might be either analytic, e.g. slowing down and bi-Maxwellian, or obtained from numerical fast ion models. A particular JET plasma with strong fast-ion related turbulence suppression is revised with these new code capabilities both with linear and nonlinear gyrokinetic simulations. It appears that the fast ion stabilization tends to be less strong but still substantial with more realistic distributions, and this improves the quantitative power balance agreement with experiments.

Linear gyrokinetic investigation of the geodesic acoustic modes in realistic tokamak configurations

In order to provide scaling formulae for the geodesic acoustic mode (GAM) frequency and damping rate, GAMs are studied by means of the gyrokinetic global particle-in-cell code ORB5. Linear electromagnetic simulations in the low-βe limit have been performed in order to separate acoustic and Alfvenic time scales and obtain more accurate measurements. The dependence of the frequency and damping rate on several parameters such as the safety factor, the GAM radial wavenumber, and the plasma elongation is studied. All simulations have been performed with kinetic electrons with a realistic electron/ion mass ratio. Interpolating formulae for the GAM frequency and damping rate, based on the results of the gyrokinetic simulations, have been derived. Using these expressions, the influence of the temperature gradient on the damping rate is also investigated. Finally, the results are applied to the study of a real discharge of the ASDEX Upgrade tokamak.