This study delves into Microtearing Modes (MTMs) in tokamak plasmas, employing advanced simulations within the BOUT++ framework. The research, centering on collisional MTMs influenced by the time-dependent thermal force, enhances our understanding of plasma dynamics. It achieves this through the simplification and linearization of control equations in detailed linear simulations. The study meticulously evaluates various conductivity models, including those proposed by Larakers, Drake, and Hassam, under diverse plasma conditions and collision regimes. A notable achievement of this research is the derivation of a unified dispersion relation that encompasses both MTM and Drift-Alfven Wave (DAW) instabilities. It interestingly reveals that DAW and MTM exhibit instability at different proximities to the rational surface. Specifically, MTMs become unstable near the rational surface but stabilize farther away, whereas the drift-Alfven instability manifests away from the rational surface. Further, the study re-derives MTM dispersion relations based on Ohm's law and the vorticity equation, providing a thorough analysis of electromagnetic and electrostatic interactions in tokamaks. Global simulations demonstrate an inverse correlation between MTM growth rates and collisionality, and a direct correlation with temperature gradients. The nonalignment of the rational surface with the peak of electron local diamagnetic frequency stabilizes the MTMs. Nonlinear simulations highlight electron temperature relaxation as the primary saturation mechanism for MTMs, with magnetic flutter identified as the dominant mode of electron thermal transport.
The problem of the linear microtearing mode in a slab magnetised plasma, and its connection to kinetic reconnecting modes, is addressed. Electrons are described using a novel hybrid fluid-kinetic model that captures electron heating, ions are gyrokinetic. Magnetic reconnection can occur as a result of either electron conductivity and inertia, depending on which one predominates. We eschew the use of an energy dependent collision frequency in the collisional operator model, unlike previous works. A model of the electron conductivity that matches the weakly collisional regime to the exact Landau…
Microtearing modes are an important drive of turbulent heat transport in present-day fusion plasmas. We investigate their linear stability under very-low collisionality regimes, expected for the next generations of devices, using gyrokinetic and drift-kinetic approaches. At odds with current opinion, we show that collisionless microtearing instabilities may occur in certain experimental conditions, particularly relevant for such devices as reversed field pinches and spherical tokamaks.
We report on a detailed study of magnetic fluctuations in the JET pedestal, employing basic theoretical considerations, gyrokinetic simulations, and experimental fluctuation data, to establish the physical basis for their origin, role, and distinctive characteristics. We demonstrate quantitative agreement between gyrokinetic simulations of microtearing modes (MTMs) and two magnetic frequency bands with corresponding toroidal mode numbers n=4 and 8. Such disparate fluctuation scales, with substantial gaps between toroidal mode numbers, are commonly observed in pedestal fluctuations. Here we pro…
Electron-Scale-Driven Turbulence by Negative-Density-Gradient in NSTX
Massachusetts Institute of Technology（麻省理工学院）；General Atomics（通用原子能公司）；Marathon Fusion（马拉松聚变）；Lehigh University（利哈伊大学）；Type One Energy（Type One 能源）；Prism Computational Science, Inc（棱镜计算科学公司）；Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory（普林斯顿等离子体物理实验室）；University of California San Diego（加州大学圣地亚哥分校）
Under low-collisionality conditions the isotropic part of the electron velocity distribution function in a plasma becomes non-local and the electrons can be described by a single global distribution function . This is also the regime required for non-local collisonless (stochastic) heating in oscillating and spatially inhomogeneous electric fields. Solution of the Boltzmann equation under these conditions requires usually computationally involving multi-dimensional PIC/MC simulations. The necessity of multi-dimensional simulation arises mainly from the complicated time and space dependence of …
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 collision-less 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 absense of a pres…
This paper develops a unified linear theory of local cross-field plasma instabilities, such as the Farley-Buneman, electron thermal, and ion thermal instabilities, in collisional plasmas with fully or partially unmagnetized multi-species ions. Collisional lasma instabilities in low-ionized, highly dissipative, weakly magnetized plasmas play an important role in the lower Earth's ionosphere and may be of importance in other planet ionospheres, star atmospheres, cometary tails, molecular clouds, accretion disks, etc. In the solar chromosphere, macroscopic effects of collisional plasma instabilit…
Effects of Turbulent Energy Exchange between Electrons and Ions on Global Temperature Profiles
Graduate School of Frontier Science, The University of Tokyo（东京大学前沿科学研究生院）；National Institute for Fusion Science（国立研究开发法人核融合科学研究所）；Graduate School of Engineering, Kyoto University（京都大学工学研究科）
The transport of heat and particles in the relatively collisional edge regions of magnetically confined plasmas is a scientifically challenging and technologically important problem. Understanding and predicting this transport requires the self-consistent evolution of plasma fluctuations, global profiles and flows, but the numerical tools capable of doing this in realistic (diverted) geometry are only now being developed. Here a 5-field reduced 2-fluid plasma model for the study of instabilities and turbulence in magnetised plasmas is presented, built on the BOUT++ framework. This cold ion mod…
To faithfully simulate ITER and other modern fusion devices, one must resolve electron and ion fluctuation scales in a five-dimensional phase space and time. Simultaneously, one must account for the interaction of this turbulence with the slow evolution of the large-scale plasma profiles. Because of the enormous range of scales involved and the high dimensionality of the problem, resolved first-principles global simulations are very challenging using conventional (brute force) techniques. In this thesis, the problem of resolving turbulence is addressed by developing velocity space resolution d…
Global gyrokinetic analysis of Wendelstein 7-X discharge: unveiling the importance of trapped-electron-mode and electron-temperature-gradient turbulence
本文首次对类 W7-X 仿星器放电进行含动理学电子、平衡径向电场及电磁碰撞效应的非线性径向全局回旋动理学模拟，揭示芯部湍流电子热通量主要由 TEM 和 ETG 驱动，并强调有限电子温度梯度的关键作用。
The benchmarks of the neoclassical transport codes based on the several local drift-kinetic models are reported here. Here, the drift-kinetic models are ZOW, ZMD, DKES-like, and global, as classified in [Matsuoka et al., Physics of Plasmas 22, 072511 (2015)]. The magnetic geometries of HSX, LHD, and W7-X are employed in the benchmarks. It is found that the assumption of $\boldsymbol E \times \boldsymbol B$ incompressibility causes discrepancy of neoclassical radial flux and parallel flow among the models, when $\boldsymbol E \times \boldsymbol B$ is sufficiently large compared to the magnetic …
The nature of the turbulent energy transfer rate is studied using direct numerical simulations of weakly collisional space plasmas. This is done comparing results obtained from hybrid Vlasov-Maxwell simulations of colissionless plasmas, Hall-magnetohydrodynamics, and Landau fluid models reproducing low-frequency kinetic effects, such as the Landau damping. In this partially developed turbulent scenario, estimates of the local and global scaling properties of different energy channels are obtained using a proxy of the local energy transfer (LET). This approach provides information on the struct…
In non-collisional magnetized astrophysical plasmas, vortices can form as it is the case of the Venus plasma wake where Lundin et al. (2013) identified a large vortex through the integration of data of many orbits from the Venus Express (VEX) spacecraft. On the one hand, our purpose is to develop a theoretical foundation in order to explain the occurrence and formation of vortices in non-collisional astrophysical plasmas. On the other hand, to apply the latter in order to study the vorticity in the wakes of Venus and Mars. We introduce two theorems and two corollaries, which may be applicable …
In this paper, we study Landau damping in the weakly collisional limit of a Vlasov-Fokker-Planck equation with nonlinear collisions in the phase-space $(x,v) \in \mathbb T_x^n \times \mathbb R^n_v$. The goal is four-fold: (A) to understand how collisions suppress plasma echoes and enable Landau damping in agreement with linearized theory in Sobolev spaces, (B) to understand how phase mixing accelerates collisional relaxation, (C) to understand better how the plasma returns to global equilibrium during Landau damping, and (D) to rule out that collision-driven nonlinear instabilities dominate. W…
Weakly collisional plasmas dynamically develop pressure anisotropies with respect to the magnetic field. These anisotropies trigger plasma instabilities at scales just above the ion Larmor radius ρ_i and much below the mean free path λ_{mfp}. They have growth rates of a fraction of the ion cyclotron frequency - much faster than either the global dynamics or local turbulence. The instabilities dramatically modify the transport properties and, therefore, the macroscopic dynamics of the plasma. Their nonlinear evolution drives pressure anisotropies towards marginal stability, controlled by the pl…
Particle distributions in weakly collisional environments such as the magnetosphere have been observed to show deviations from the Maxwellian distribution. These can often be reproduced in kinetic simulations, but fluid models, which are used in global simulations of the magnetosphere, do not necessarily capture any of this. We apply the maximum entropy fluid closure of Levermore, which leads to well posed moment equations, to reconstruct particle distributions from a kinetic simulation in a reconnection region. Our results show that without information other than the moments, the model can re…
We present a global-in-radius linear analysis of the axisymmetric magnetorotational instability (MRI) in a collisional magnetized plasma with Braginskii viscosity. For a galactic angular velocity profile $Ω$ we obtain analytic solutions for three magnetic field orientations: purely azimuthal, purely vertical and slightly pitched (almost azimuthal). In the first two cases the Braginskii viscosity damps otherwise neutrally stable modes, and reduces the growth rate of the MRI respectively. In the final case the Braginskii viscosity makes the MRI up to $2\sqrt{2}$ times faster than its inviscid co…
The transport of the energy contained in electrons, both thermal and suprathermal, in solar flares plays a key role in our understanding of many aspects of the flare phenomenon, from the spatial distribution of hard X-ray emission to global energetics. Motivated by recent {\em RHESSI} observations that point to the existence of a mechanism that confines electrons to the coronal parts of flare loops more effectively than Coulomb collisions, we here consider the impact of pitch-angle scattering off turbulent magnetic fluctuations on the parallel transport of electrons in flaring coronal loops. I…
Both global dynamics and turbulence in magnetized weakly collisional cosmic plasmas are described by general magnetofluid equations that contain pressure anisotropies and heat fluxes that must be calculated from microscopic plasma kinetic theory. It is shown that even without a detailed calculation of the pressure anisotropy or the heat fluxes, one finds the macroscale dynamics to be generically unstable to microscale Alfvenically polarized fluctuations. Two instabilities are considered in detail: the parallel firehose instability (including the finite-Larmor-radius effects that determine the …
