Azimuthal flow is driven in the edge of the Large Plasma Device (LAPD) [W. Gekelman, {\itshape et. al}, Rev. Sci. Instr. {\bfseries 62}, 2875 (1991)] through biasing a section of the vacuum vessel relative to the plasma source cathode. As the applied bias exceeds a threshold, a transition in radial particle confinement is observed, evidenced by a dramatic steepening in the density profile, similar to the L- to H-mode transition in toroidal confinement devices. The threshold behavior and dynamic behavior of radial transport is related to flow penetration and the degree of spatial overlap between the flow shear and density gradient profiles. An investigation of the changes in turbulence and turbulent particle transport associated with the confinement transition is presented. Two-dimensional cross-correlation measurements show that the spatial coherence of edge turbulence in LAPD changes significantly with biasing. The azimuthal correlation in the turbulence increases dramatically, while the radial correlation length is little altered. Turbulent amplitude is reduced at the transition, particularly in electric field fluctuations, but the dominant change observed is in the cross-phase between density and electric field fluctuations. The changes in cross-phase lead to a suppression and then apparent reversal of turbulent particle flux as the threshold is exceeded.
Continuous control over azimuthal flow and shear in the edge of the Large Plasma Device (LAPD) has been achieved using a biasable limiter which has allowed a careful study of the effect of flow shear on pressure-gradient-driven turbulence and transport in LAPD. LAPD rotates spontaneously in the ion diamagnetic direction (IDD); positive limiter bias first reduces, then minimizes (producing a near-zero shear state), and finally reverses the flow into the electron diamagnetic direction (EDD). Degradation of particle confinement is observed in the minimum shearing state and reduction in turbulent …
Numerical simulation of plasma turbulence in the Large Plasma Device (LAPD) [Gekelman et al, Rev. Sci. Inst., 62, 2875, 1991] is presented. The model, implemented in the BOUndary Turbulence (BOUT) code [M. Umansky et al, Contrib. Plasma Phys. 180, 887 (2009)], includes 3-D collisional fluid equations for plasma density, electron parallel momentum, and current continuity, and also includes the effects of ion-neutral collisions. In nonlinear simulations using measured LAPD density profiles but assuming constant temperature profile for simplicity, self-consistent evolution of instabilities and no…
Strongly intermittent turbulence is observed in the shadow of a limiter in the Large Plasma Device (LAPD) at UCLA [W. Gekelman, H. Pfister, Z. Lucky, J. Bamber, D. Leneman, and J. Maggs, Rev. Sci. Inst. {\bfseries 62}, 2875 (1991)]. The amplitude probability distribution function (PDF) of the turbulence is strongly skewed, with density depletion events (or ``holes'') dominant in the high density region and density enhancement events (or ``blobs'') dominant in the low density region. Two-dimensional cross-conditional averaging shows that the blobs are detached, outward-propagating filamentary s…
In nonlinear dynamical systems with highly nonorthogonal linear eigenvectors, linear non-modal analysis is more useful than normal mode analysis in predicting turbulent properties. However, the non-trivial time evolution of non-modal structures makes quantitative understanding and prediction difficult. We present a technique to overcome this difficulty by modeling the effect that the advective nonlinearities have on spatial turbulent structures. The nonlinearities are taken as a periodic randomizing force with time scale consistent with critical balance arguments. We apply this technique to a …
The distributed chaos driven by Levich-Tsinober (helicity) integral: $I=\int \langle h({\bf x},t)~h({\bf x}+{\bf r}, t)\rangle d{\bf r}$ has been studied. It is shown that the helical distributed chaos can be considered as basis for complex turbulent flows with interplay between large-scale coherent structures and small-scale turbulence, such as Cuette-Taylor flow, wake behind cylinder and turbulent flow in the Large Plasma Device (LAPD) with inserted limiters. In the last case appearance of the helical distributed chaos, caused by the limiters, results in improvement of radial particle confin…
By presenting linear and nonlinear gyrokinetic studies, based on a balanced neutral beam injection deuterium discharge from the DIII-D tokamak, we demonstrate that impurities alter the scaling of the transport on the charge and mass of the main species, and even more importantly, they can dramatically change the energy transport even in relatively small quantities. A poloidally varying equilibrium electrostatic potential can lead to a strong reduction or sign change of the impurity peaking factor due to the combined effect of the in-out impurity density asymmetry and the EXB drift of impuritie…
The results of flux-driven, two-fluid simulations in single-null configurations are used to investigate the processes determining the turbulent transport in the tokamak edge. Three turbulent transport regimes are identified: (i) a developed transport regime with turbulence driven by an interchange instability, which shares a number of features with the standard L-mode of tokamak operation, (ii) a suppressed transport regime, characterized by a higher value of the energy confinement time, low-amplitude relative fluctuations driven by a Kelvin-Helmholtz instability, a strong E x B sheared flow, …
A new optimized quasihelically symmetric configuration is described that has the desir-able properties of improved energetic particle confinement, reduced turbulent transportby 3D shaping, and non-resonant divertor capabilities. The configuration presented in thispaper is explicitly optimized for quasihelical symmetry, energetic particle confinement,neoclassical confinement, and stability near the axis. Post optimization, the configurationwas evaluated for its performance with regard to energetic particle transport, idealmagnetohydrodynamic (MHD) stability at various values of plasma pressure,…
Local nonlinear gyrokinetic simulations of tokamak plasmas demonstrate that turbulent eddies can extend along magnetic field lines for hundreds of poloidal turns when the magnetic shear is very small. By accurately modeling different field line topologies (e.g. low-order, almost rational, or irrational safety factor), we show that the parallel self-interaction of such "ultra long" eddies can dramatically reduce heat transport. This reveals novel strategies to improve confinement, constitutes experimentally testable predictions, and illuminates past observations of internal transport barriers.
A recent characterization of core turbulence carried out with a Doppler reflectometer in the optimized stellarator Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) found that discharges achieving high ion temperatures at the core featured an ITG-like suppression of density fluctuations driven by a reduction of the gradient ratio $η_i = L_n/L_{T_i}$ [D. Carralero et al., Nucl. Fusion, 2021]. In order to confirm the role of ITG turbulence in this process, we set out to establish experimentally the relation between core density fluctuations, turbulent heat flux and global confinement. With this aim, we consider the scenar…
First principle gyrokinetic simulation of the edge turbulent transport in toroidal plasmas finds a reverse trend in the turbulent transport coefficients under strong gradients. It is found that there exist both linear and nonlinear critical gradients for the nonmonotonicity of transport characteristics. The discontinuity of transport flux slope around the turning gradient shows features of second order phase transition. Under strong gradient the most unstable modes are in non-ground eigenstates with unconventional mode structures, which significantly reduces the effective correlation length an…
We study the turbulent transport of an ion cyclotron resonance heated (ICRH), MeV range minority ion species in tokamak plasmas. Such highly energetic minorities, which can be produced in the three ion minority heating scheme [Ye. O. Kazakov et al. (2015) Nucl. Fusion 55, 032001], have been proposed to be used to experimentally study the confinement properties of fast ions without the generation of fusion alphas. We compare the turbulent transport properties of ICRH ions with that of fusion born alpha particles. Our theoretical predictions indicate that care must be taken when conclusions are …
Nonlinear gyrokinetic simulations have been conducted to investigate turbulent transport in tokamak plasmas with rotational shear. At sufficiently large flow shears, linear instabilities are suppressed, but transiently growing modes drive subcritical turbulence whose amplitude increases with flow shear. This leads to a local minimum in the heat flux, indicating an optimal E x B shear value for plasma confinement. Local maxima in the momentum fluxes are also observed, allowing for the possibility of bifurcations in the E x B shear. The sensitive dependence of heat flux on temperature gradient i…
One of the most intensely studied aspects of magnetic confinement fusion is edge plasma turbulence which is critical to reactor performance and operation. Drift-reduced Braginskii two-fluid theory has for decades been widely applied to model boundary plasmas with varying success. Towards better understanding edge turbulence in both theory and experiment, we demonstrate that physics-informed neural networks constrained by partial differential equations can accurately learn turbulent fields consistent with the two-fluid theory from just partial observations of a synthetic plasma's electron densi…
We present a simple model for the turbulent kinetic energy behavior of subsonic plasma turbulence undergoing isotropic three-dimensional compression, such as may exist in various inertial confinement fusion experiments or astrophysical settings. The plasma viscosity depends on both the temperature and the ionization state, for which many possible scalings with compression are possible. For example, in an adiabatic compression the temperature scales as $1/L^2$, with $L$ the linear compression ratio, but if thermal energy loss mechanisms are accounted for, the temperature scaling may be weaker. …
The understanding of cross-field transport is crucial in order to optimize the properties of magnetic confinement in modern fusion devices. In this work, a two-dimensional, simplified model is used to study the turbulent dynamics in the region of the scrape-off layer. We show how the numerical model, based on the reduced Braginskii equations, is able to describe the formation and the evolution over time of blobs structures. We study these complex dynamics by using both classical Eulerian analysis and the Lagrangian approach, by varying the ambient conditions of the plasma. We have found that b…
Improved Particle Confinement with Resonant Magnetic Perturbations in DIII-D Tokamak H-Mode Plasmas
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory（劳伦斯利弗莫尔国家实验室）；Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory（普林斯顿等离子体物理实验室）；General Atomics（通用原子能公司）；University of California, Los Angeles（加州大学洛杉矶分校）；Massachusetts Institute of Technology（麻省理工学院）
In the Wendelstein 7-X magnetic confinement experiment, a reduction of turbulent density fluctuations as well as anomalous impurity diffusion is associated with a peaking of the plasma density profile. These effects correlate with improved confinement and appear largely due to a reduction of anomalous transport as the change in neoclassical transport is small. The observed decrease of turbulent heat flux with increased density gradients is in agreement with nonlinear gyrokinetic simulations, and has been attributed to the unique geometry of W7-X that limits the severity of trapped electron mod…
The confinement of heat in the core of a magnetic fusion reactor is optimised using a multidimensional optimisation algorithm. For the first time in such a study, the loss of heat due to turbulence is modelled at every stage using first-principles nonlinear simulations which accurately capture the turbulent cascade and large-scale zonal flows. The simulations utilise a novel approach, with gyrofluid treatment of the small-scale drift waves and gyrokinetic treatment of the large-scale zonal flows. A simple near-circular equilibrium with standard parameters is chosen as the initial condition. Th…
Gyrokinetic turbulent transport simulations on steady burning condition in D-T-He plasmas
National Institute for Fusion Science, National Institutes of Natural Sciences（国立研究开发法人 国立科学研究所 核聚变科学研究所）；The Graduate University for Advanced Studies（高等研究院）；PRESTO, Japan Science and Technology Agency（日本科学技术振兴机构 PRESTO项目）；Graduate School of Engineering, Kyoto University（京都大学 工学研究科）
For the first time the pellet cycle of a multiple-isotope plasma is successfully reproduced with reduced turbulent transport modelling, within an integrated simulation framework. Future nuclear fusion reactors are likely to be fuelled by cryogenic pellet injection, due to higher penetration and faster response times. Accurate pellet cycle modelling is crucial to assess fuelling efficiency and burn control. In recent JET tokamak experiments, deuterium pellets with reactor-relevant deposition characteristics were injected into a pure hydrogen plasma. Measurements of the isotope ratio profile inf…
The key result of the present work is the theoretical prediction and observation of the formation of a new type of transport barrier in fusion plasmas, called F-ATB (fast ion-induced anomalous transport barrier). As demonstrated through state-of-the-art global electrostatic and electromagnetic simulations, the F-ATB is characterized by a full suppression of the turbulent transport - caused by strongly sheared, axisymmetric $E \times B$ flows - and an increase of the neoclassical counterpart, albeit keeping the overall fluxes at significantly reduced levels. The trigger mechanism is shown to be…
The role of ion polarisation and finite Larmor radius on the isotope effect on turbulent tokamak edge transport and flows is investigated by means of local electromagnetic multi-species gyro-fluid computations. Transport is found to be reduced with the effective plasma mass for protium, deuterium and tritium mixtures. This isotope effect is found for both cold and warm ion models, but significant influence of finite Larmor radius and polarisation effects are identified. Sheared flow reduction of transport through self generated turbulent zonal flows and geodesic acoustic modes in the present m…
Turbulent transport is known to limit the plasma confinement of present-day optimized stellarators. To address this issue, a novel method to strongly suppress turbulence in such devices is proposed, namely the resonant wave-particle interaction of supra-thermal particles - e.g., from ion-cyclotron-resonance-frequency (ICRF) heating - with turbulence-driving microinstabilities like ion-temperature-gradient (ITG) modes. The effectiveness of this mechanism is demonstrated via analytic theory and large-scale gyrokinetic simulations, revealing an overall turbulence reduction by up to $80\%$. These …
Understanding the interaction mechanisms between large-scale magnetohydrodynamic instabilities and small-scale drift-wave microturbulence is essential for predicting and optimizing the performance of magnetic confinement based fusion energy experiments. We report progress on understanding these interactions using both analytic theory and numerical simulations performed with the BOUT++ [B. Dudson et al., Comput. Phys. Comm. 180, 1467 (2009)] framework. This work focuses upon the dynamics of the ion temperature gradient instability in the presence of a background static magnetic island, using a …
The recent progress in high-temperature superconductor technologies has led to the design and construction of SPARC, a compact tokamak device expected to reach plasma breakeven with up to $25$MW of external ion cyclotron resonant heating (ICRH) power. This manuscript presents local (flux-tube) and radially global gyrokinetic GENE (Jenko et al 2000 Phys. Plasmas {\bf 7} 1904) simulations for a reduced-field and current H-mode SPARC scenario showing that supra-thermal particles - generated via ICRH - strongly suppress ion-scale turbulent transport by triggering a fast ion-induced anomalous trans…
Turbulence driven zonal flows play an important role in fusion devices since they improve plasma confinement by limiting the level of anomalous transport. Current theories mostly focus on flow excitation but do not self-consistently describe the nearly stationary zonal flow turbulence equilibrium state. First-principles two-fluid turbulence studies are used to construct a Reynolds stress response functional from observations in turbulent states. This permits, for the first time, a reliable charting of zonal flow turbulence equilibria.
Spontaneous spin-up are widely observed in tokamak plasmas, which is crucially important for plasma confinement. A kinetic theory is proposed to show that a toroidal rotation of core plasma is induced by the topological transition of orbits driven by turbulent diffusion in a collisionless tokamak plasma. The theoretical prediction agrees well with the well-known Rice-scaling of intrinsic core plasma flow. This new theory predicts an intrinsic core parallel flow of $\sim 100km/s$ for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor.
This paper outlines an approach towards improved rigour in tokamak turbulence transport model validation within integrated modelling. Gaussian process regression (GPR) techniques were applied for profile fitting during the preparation of integrated modelling simulations allowing for rigourous sensitivity tests of prescribed initial and boundary conditions as both fit and derivative uncertainties are provided. This was demonstrated by a JETTO integrated modelling simulation of the JET ITER-like-wall H-mode baseline discharge #92436 with the QuaLiKiz quasilinear turbulent transport model, which …
In an inhomogeneous magnetised plasma the transport of energy and particles perpendicular to the magnetic field is in general mainly caused by quasi two-dimensional turbulent fluid mixing. The physics of turbulence and structure formation is of ubiquitous importance to every magnetically confined laboratory plasma for experimental or industrial application. Specifically, high temperature plasmas for fusion energy research are also dominated by the properties of this turbulent transport. Self-organisation of turbulent vortices to mesoscopic structures like zonal flows is related to the formatio…
The SOL width is a parameter of paramount importance in modern tokamaks as it controls the power density deposited at the divertor plates, critical for plasma-facing material survivability. An understanding of the parameters controlling it has consequently long been sought (Connor et al. 1999 NF 39 2). Prior to Chang et al.(2017 NF 57 11), studies of the tokamak edge have been mostly confined to reduced fluid models and simplified geometries, leaving out important pieces of physics. Here, we analyze the results of a DIII-D simulation performed with the full-f gyrokinetic code XGC1 which includ…
Turbulent plasmas notably self-organize to higher energy states upon application of additional free energy sources or modification of edge operating conditions. Mechanisms whereby such bifurcations occur have been actively debated for decades. Enhanced confinement occurs at the plasma edge, where a shortfall of predicted turbulence intensity has been puzzling scientists for decades. We show, from the primitive kinetic equations that both problems are connected and that interplay of confined plasma turbulence with its material boundaries is essential to curing the shortfall of predicted turbule…
We study the streaming instability of GeV$-100~$GeV cosmic rays (CRs) and its damping in the turbulent interstellar medium (ISM). We find that the damping of streaming instability is dominated by ion-neutral collisional damping in weakly ionized molecular clouds, turbulent damping in the highly ionized warm medium, and nonlinear Landau damping in the Galactic halo. Only in the Galactic halo, is the streaming speed of CRs close to the Alfvén speed. Alfvénic turbulence plays an important role in both suppressing the streaming instability and regulating the diffusion of streaming CRs via magnetic…
Turbulent Origin of the Edge Radial Electric Field Asymmetry between Favourable and Unfavourable Drift Configurations
Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik（马克斯·普朗克等离子体物理研究所）；Laboratoire de Physique des Plasmas, CNRS-École Polytechnique（巴黎综合理工学院等离子体物理实验室）；École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)（洛桑联邦理工学院）
A key uncertainty in the design and development of magnetic confinement fusion energy reactors is predicting edge plasma turbulence. An essential step in overcoming this uncertainty is the validation in accuracy of reduced turbulent transport models. Drift-reduced Braginskii two-fluid theory is one such set of reduced equations that has for decades simulated boundary plasmas in experiment, but significant questions exist regarding its predictive ability. To this end, using a novel physics-informed deep learning framework, we demonstrate the first ever direct quantitative comparisons of turbule…
Revisiting the role of cosmic-ray driven Alfvén waves in pre-existing magnetohydrodynamic turbulence. I. Turbulent damping rates and feedback on background fluctuations
Laser blow-off injections of aluminum and tungsten have been performed on the DIII-D tokamak to investigate the variation of impurity transport in a set of dedicated ion and electron heating scans with a fixed value of the external torque. The particle transport is quantified via the Bayesian inference method, which, constrained by a combination of a charge exchange recombination spectroscopy, soft X-ray measurements, and VUV spectroscopy provides a detailed uncertainty quantification of the transport coefficients. Contrasting discharge phases with a dominant electron and ion heating reveal a …
The microphysics of ~GeV cosmic ray (CR) transport on galactic scales remain deeply uncertain, with almost all studies adopting simple prescriptions (e.g. constant-diffusivity). We explore different physically-motivated, anisotropic, dynamical CR transport scalings in high-resolution cosmological FIRE simulations of dwarf and ~$L_{\ast}$ galaxies where scattering rates vary with local plasma properties motivated by extrinsic turbulence (ET) or self-confinement (SC) scenarios, with varying assumptions about e.g. turbulent power spectra on un-resolved scales, Alfven-wave damping, etc. We self-co…
Asymptotic scaling theory of electrostatic turbulent transport in magnetised fusion plasmas
Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory（普林斯顿等离子体物理实验室）；University of Maryland（马里兰大学）；University of Oxford（牛津大学）；Princeton University（普林斯顿大学）；Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics（电子与应用物理研究所）；United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority（英国原子能管理局）；University of New Hampshire（新罕布什尔大学）；University of Otago（奥塔哥大学）
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne（洛桑联邦理工学院）
The analysis of turbulence in plasmas is fundamental in fusion research. Despite extensive progress in theoretical modeling in the past 15 years, we still lack a complete and consistent understanding of turbulence in magnetic confinement devices, such as tokamaks. Experimental studies are challenging due to the diverse processes that drive the high-speed dynamics of turbulent phenomena. This work presents a novel application of motion tracking to identify and track turbulent filaments in fusion plasmas, called blobs, in a high-frequency video obtained from Gas Puff Imaging diagnostics. We comp…
