Linear gyrokinetic calculations of toroidal momentum transport in the presence of trapped electron modes in tokamak plasmas

Journal Article · Tue Dec 15 00:00:00 EST 2009 · Physics of Plasmas

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3271411· OSTI ID:21371315

Kluy, N; Angioni, C ^[1]; Camenen, Y; Peeters, A G ^[2]

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1. Max-Planck-Institut fuer Plasmaphysik, IPP-EURATOM Association, D-85748 Garching bei Muenchen (Germany)
2. Department of Physics, Center for Fusion, Space, and Astrophysics, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL (United Kingdom)

The toroidal momentum transport in the presence of trapped electron mode microinstabilities in tokamak plasmas is studied by means of quasilinear gyrokinetic calculations. In particular, the role of the Coriolis drift in producing an inward convection of toroidal momentum is investigated. The Coriolis drift term has been implemented in the gyrokinetic code GS2 [W. Dorland et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 5579 (2000)] specifically for the completion of this work. A benchmark between the GS2 implementation of the Coriolis drift and the implementations included in two other gyrokinetic codes is presented. The numerical calculations show that in the presence of trapped electron modes, despite of a weaker symmetry breaking of the eigenfunctions with respect to the case of ion temperature gradient modes, a pinch of toroidal momentum is produced in most conditions. The toroidal momentum viscosity is also computed, and found to be small as compared with the electron heat conductivity, but significantly larger than the ion heat conductivity. In addition, interesting differences are found in the dependence of the toroidal momentum pinch as a function of collisionality between trapped electron modes and ion temperature gradient modes. The results identify also parameter domains in which the pinch is predicted to be small, which are also of interest for comparisons with the experiments.

• OSTI ID: 21371315
• Journal Information: Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 16, Issue 12; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.3271411; (c) 2009 American Institute of Physics; ISSN 1070-664X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
BENCHMARKS
CORIOLIS FORCE
EIGENFUNCTIONS
ION TEMPERATURE
PLASMA
PLASMA MICROINSTABILITIES
PLASMA SIMULATION
SYMMETRY BREAKING
TEMPERATURE GRADIENTS
TOKAMAK DEVICES
TRAPPED ELECTRONS
CLOSED PLASMA DEVICES
ELECTRONS
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
FERMIONS
FUNCTIONS
INSTABILITY
LEPTONS
PLASMA INSTABILITY
SIMULATION
THERMONUCLEAR DEVICES