P. Migliano

The linear tearing instability in three dimensional, toroidal gyro-kinetic simulations

Linear gyro-kinetic simulations of the classical tearing mode in three-dimensional toroidal geometry were performed using the global gyro-kinetic turbulence code, GKW. The results were benchmarked against a cylindrical ideal MHD and analytical theory calculations. The stability, growth rate, and frequency of the mode were investigated by varying the current profile, collisionality, and the pressure gradients. Both collisionless and semi-collisional tearing modes were found with a smooth transition between the two. A residual, finite, rotation frequency of the mode even in the absence of a pressure gradient is observed, which is attributed to toroidal finite Larmor-radius effects. When a pressure gradient is present at low collisionality, the mode rotates at the expected electron diamagnetic frequency. However, the island rotation reverses direction at high collisionality. The growth rate is found to follow a η1∕7 scaling with collisional resistivity in the semi-collisional regime, closely following the se...

Ion temperature gradient instability at sub-Larmor radius scales with non-zero ballooning angle

Linear gyro-kinetic stability calculations predict unstable toroidal ion temperature gradient modes (ITGs) with normalised poloidal wave vectors well above one (kθρi>1) for standard tokamak parameters with adiabatic electron response. These modes have a maximum amplitude at a poloidal angle θ that is shifted away from the low field side (θ≠0). The physical mechanism is clarified through the use of a fluid model. It is shown that the shift of the mode away from the low field side reduces the effective drift frequency which allows for the instability to develop. Numerical tests using the gyro-kinetic model confirm this physical mechanism. Furthermore, it is shown that modes localized away from the low field side can be important also for kθρi<1 close to the threshold of the ITG. In fact, modes with maximum amplitude at θ≠0 can exist for normalised temperature gradient lengths below the threshold of the ITG obtained for the case with the maximum at θ=0.

Toroidal momentum transport in a tokamak due to profile shearing

The effect of profile shearing on toroidal momentum transport is studied in linear and non-linear gyro-kinetic simulations. Retaining the radial dependence of both plasma and geometry parameters leads to a momentum flux that has contributions both linear in the logarithmic gradients of density and temperature, as well as contributions linear in the derivatives of the logarithmic gradients. The effect of the turbulence intensity gradient on momentum transport is found to be small for the studied parameters. Linear simulations at fixed normalized toroidal wave number predict a weak dependence of the momentum flux on the normalized Larmor radius ρ*=ρ/R. Non-linear simulations, however, at sufficiently small ρ* show a linear scaling of the momentum flux with ρ*. The obtained stationary rotation gradients are in the range of, although perhaps smaller than, current experiments. For a reactor plasma, however, a rather small rotation gradient should result from profile shearing.

Comparison of gradient and flux driven gyro-kinetic turbulent transport

Flux and gradient driven ion temperature gradient turbulence in tokamak geometry and for Cyclone base case parameters are compared in the local limit using the same underlying gyro-kinetic turbulence model. The gradient driven turbulence described using the flux tube model with periodic boundary conditions has a finite ion heat flux Qi≈10n0T0ρ*2vth, where n0 (T0) is the background density (temperature), ρ*=ρ/R is the normalized Larmor radius, R is the major radius of the device, and vth is the ion thermal velocity at the nonlinear threshold of the temperature gradient length for turbulence generation. Consequently, the gradient driven local transport model is unable to accurately describe heat fluxes below Qi 10n0T0ρ*2vth, and at higher heat fluxes, the statistics of the turbulence is ...

Turbulence spreading in gyro-kinetic theory

In this letter a new operative definition for the turbulence intensity in connection with magnetized plasmas is given. In contrast to previous definitions the new definition satisfies a Fisher–Kolmogorov–Petrovskii–Piskunov type equation. Furthermore, explicit expressions for the turbulence intensity and the turbulence intensity flux, that allow for the first time direct numerical evaluation, are derived. A carefully designed numerical experiment for the case of a tokamak is performed to study the impact of turbulence spreading. The effective turbulence diffusion coefficient is measured to be smaller than the heat conduction coefficient and the turbulence spreading length is found to be of the order of the turbulence correlation length. The results show that turbulence spreading can play a role in the non-local flux gradient relation, or in the scaling of transport coefficients with the normalized Larmor radius, only over lengths scale of the order of the turbulence correlation length. A new turbulence convection mechanism, due to the drift connected with the magnetic field inhomogeneities, is described. The convective flux integrates to zero under the flux surface average unless there is an up–down asymmetry in the tubulence intensity. The latter asymmetry can be generated through a radial inhomogeneity or plasma rotation. It is shown that the turbulence convection can lead to a spreading of the order of the correlation length.

Influence of centrifugal effects on particle and momentum transport in National Spherical Torus Experiment

This paper studies the effect of rotation on microinstabilities under experimentally relevant conditions in the spherical tokamak National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX). The focus is specifically on the centrifugal force effects on the impurity and momentum transport in the core ( r/a=0.7) of an H-mode plasma. Due to relatively high beta, the linear simulations predict the presence of both microtearing mode (MTM) and hybrid ion temperature gradient-kinetic ballooning mode (ITG-KBM) electromagnetic instabilities. Rotation effects on both MTM and ITG-KBM growth rates and mode frequencies are found to be small for the experimental values. However, they do influence the quasi-linear particle and momentum fluxes predicted by ITG-KBM (MTM contributes only to electron heat flux). The gradient of the intrinsic carbon impurity in the source-free core region is predicted to be locally hollow, strengthened by centrifugal effects. This result is consistent with experimental measurements and contradicts neoclassic...

The radial propagation of turbulence in gyro-kinetic toroidal systems

In this paper, a conservation equation is derived for the radially dependent entropy in toroidal geometry using the local approximation of the gyro-kinetic equation. This naturally leads to an operative definition for the turbulence intensity. It is shown that the conservation equation can be split into two contributions, one describing the dynamics of the zonal modes and one for the non-zonal modes. In essence the paper provides an operative tool for both analytic as well as numeric studies of the radial propagation of turbulence in tokamak plasmas.

Interchange destabilization of collisionless tearing modes by temperature gradient

Using a fluid theory, the stability of collisionless tearing modes in plasmas is analyzed in the presence of an inhomogeneous magnetic field, electron temperature and density gradients. It is shown that small scale modes, characterized by a negative stability parameter (∆ < 0), can be driven unstable due to a combination of the magnetic field and electron temperature gradients. The destabilization mechanism is identified as of the interchange type similar to that for toroidal Electron Temperature Gradient modes.