Extreme heat fluxes in gyrokinetic simulations: a new critical β

A hitherto unexplained feature of electromagnetic simulations of ion temperature gradient turbulence is the apparent failure of the transport levels to saturate for certain parameters; this effect, termed here nonzonal transition, has been referred to as the high-β runaway. The resulting large heat fluxes are shown to be a consequence of reduced zonal flow activity, brought on by magnetic field perturbations shorting out flux surfaces.

Origin of magnetic stochasticity and transport in plasma microturbulence

Nonlinear excitation of linearly stable microtearing modes--with zonal modes acting as a catalyst--is shown to be responsible for the near-ubiquitous magnetic stochasticity and associated electromagnetic electron heat transport in electromagnetic gyrokinetic simulations of plasma microturbulence.

Electromagnetic transport from microtearing mode turbulence

This Letter presents nonlinear gyrokinetic simulations of microtearing mode turbulence. The simulations include collisional and electromagnetic effects and use experimental parameters from a high-β discharge in the National Spherical Torus Experiment. The predicted electron thermal transport is comparable to that given by experimental analysis, and it is dominated by the electromagnetic contribution of electrons free-streaming along the resulting stochastic magnetic field line trajectories. Experimental values of flow shear can significantly reduce the predicted transport.

Saturation of gyrokinetic turbulence through damped eigenmodes

In the context of toroidal gyrokinetic simulations, it is shown that a hierarchy of damped modes is excited in the nonlinear turbulent state. These modes exist at the same spatial scales as the unstable eigenmodes that drive the turbulence. The larger amplitude subdominant modes are weakly damped and exhibit smooth, large-scale structure in velocity space and in the direction parallel to the magnetic field. Modes with increasingly fine-scale structure are excited to decreasing amplitudes. In aggregate, damped modes define a potent energy sink. This leads to an overlap of the spatial scales of energy injection and peak dissipation, a feature that is in contrast with more traditional turbulent systems.

Magnetic stochasticity in gyrokinetic simulations of plasma microturbulence

Analysis of the magnetic field structure from electromagnetic simulations of tokamak ion temperature gradient turbulence demonstrates that the magnetic field can be stochastic even at very low plasma pressure. The degree of magnetic stochasticity is quantified by evaluating the magnetic diffusion coefficient. We find that the magnetic stochasticity fails to produce a dramatic increase in the electron heat conductivity because the magnetic diffusion coefficient remains small.

TEMPEST simulations of collisionless damping of the geodesic-acoustic mode in edge-plasma pedestals

The fully nonlinear (full-f) four-dimensional TEMPEST gyrokinetic continuum code correctly produces the frequency and collisionless damping of geodesic-acoustic modes (GAMs) and zonal flow, with fully nonlinear Boltzmann electrons for the inverse aspect ratio scan and the tokamak safety factor q scan in homogeneous plasmas. TEMPEST simulations show that the GAMs exist in the edge pedestal for steep density and temperature gradients in the form of outgoing waves. The enhanced GAM damping may explain experimental beam emission spectroscopy measurements on the edge q scaling of the GAM amplitude.

Blob dynamics in 3D BOUT simulations of tokamak edge turbulence

Propagating filaments of enhanced plasma density, or blobs, observed in 3D numerical simulations of a diverted, neutral-fueled tokamak are studied. Fluctuations of vorticity, electrical potential phi, temperature Te, and current density J parallel associated with the blobs have a dipole structure perpendicular to the magnetic field and propagate radially with large E x B drift velocities (>1 km/s). The simulation results are consistent with a 3D blob dynamics model that incorporates increased parallel plasma resistivity (from neutral cooling of the X-point region), blob disconnection from the divertor sheath, X-point closure of the current loops, and collisional physics to sustain the phi, Te, J parallel dipoles.

Experimental and theoretical study of quasicoherent fluctuations in enhanced D(alpha) plasmas in the Alcator C-Mod tokamak

A comparison of experimental measurements and theoretical studies of the quasicoherent (QC) mode, observed at high densities during enhanced D(alpha) (EDA) H mode in the Alcator C-Mod tokamak, are reported. The QC mode is a high frequency ( approximately 100 kHz) nearly sinusoidal fluctuation in density and magnetic field, localized in the steep density gradient ("pedestal") at the plasma edge, with typical wave numbers k(R) approximately 3-6 cm(-1), k(theta) approximately 1.3 cm(-1) (midplane). It is proposed here that the QC mode is a form of resistive ballooning mode known as the resistive X-point mode, in reasonable agreement with predictions by the BOUT (boundary-plasma turbulence) code.