Thick-wall effects in the theory of resistive wall modes
- Institute of Tokamak Physics, National Research Centre 'Kurchatov Institute', Kurchatov Sq., 1, Moscow 123182 (Russian Federation)
Magnetic interaction of the plasma perturbations with the nearby resistive wall is considered as a resistive wall mode (RWM) problem, but with two essential differences from the traditional thin-wall approach. First, the wall is treated as magnetically thick, which means that the skin depth is not assumed larger than the wall thickness. Second, the plasma is allowed to enter the region where the RWM must be deeply unstable without rotation. The latter corresponds to the plasma operation above the no-wall stability limit demonstrated in the DIII-D tokamak [E. J. Strait et al., Phys. Plasmas 11, 2505 (2004)]. It is shown that the rotational stabilization observed in these experiments can be reproduced in this model if the mode is forced to rotate with a frequency above a critical level. The analytical estimates show that this effect (absent in the model based on the thin-wall approximation) is strong at realistic parameters. The model also predicts that the locking of the rotationally stabilized mode gives rise to instability with a growth rate much larger than its thin-wall estimate.
- OSTI ID:
- 22072463
- Journal Information:
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 19, Issue 6; Other Information: (c) 2012 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1070-664X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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