Stability threshold of ion temperature gradient driven mode in reversed field pinch plasmas

2008 ◽  
Vol 15 (12) ◽  
pp. 122510 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. C. Guo
2011 ◽  
Vol 51 (8) ◽  
pp. 083021 ◽  
Author(s):  
S.F. Liu ◽  
S.C. Guo ◽  
C.L. Zhang ◽  
J.Q. Dong ◽  
L. Carraro ◽  
...  

2016 ◽  
Vol 82 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
F. van Wyk ◽  
E. G. Highcock ◽  
A. A. Schekochihin ◽  
C. M. Roach ◽  
A. R. Field ◽  
...  

Tokamak turbulence, driven by the ion-temperature gradient and occurring in the presence of flow shear, is investigated by means of local, ion-scale, electrostatic gyrokinetic simulations (with both kinetic ions and electrons) of the conditions in the outer core of the Mega-Ampere Spherical Tokamak (MAST). A parameter scan in the local values of the ion-temperature gradient and flow shear is performed. It is demonstrated that the experimentally observed state is near the stability threshold and that this stability threshold is nonlinear: sheared turbulence is subcritical, i.e. the system is formally stable to small perturbations, but, given a large enough initial perturbation, it transitions to a turbulent state. A scenario for such a transition is proposed and supported by numerical results: close to threshold, the nonlinear saturated state and the associated anomalous heat transport are dominated by long-lived coherent structures, which drift across the domain, have finite amplitudes, but are not volume filling; as the system is taken away from the threshold into the more unstable regime, the number of these structures increases until they overlap and a more conventional chaotic state emerges. Whereas this appears to represent a new scenario for transition to turbulence in tokamak plasmas, it is reminiscent of the behaviour of other subcritically turbulent systems, e.g. pipe flows and Keplerian magnetorotational accretion flows.


2012 ◽  
Vol 19 (10) ◽  
pp. 102508 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Chowdhury ◽  
S. Brunner ◽  
R. Ganesh ◽  
X. Lapillonne ◽  
L. Villard ◽  
...  

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