Role of microtearing mode in DIII-D and future high-βp core plasmas

Jian, X.; Holland, C.; Candy, J.; Ding, S.; Belli, E.; Chan, V.; Staebler, G. M.; Garofalo, A. M.; Mcclenaghan, J.; Snyder, P.

doi:10.1063/5.0037246

Title: Role of microtearing mode in DIII-D and future high-β_p core plasmas

Journal Article · Fri Apr 02 00:00:00 EDT 2021 · Physics of Plasmas

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0037246· OSTI ID:1779309

^[1]; Holland, C. ^[1];

^[2];

^[3];

^[2]; Chan, V. ^[2];

^[2]; Garofalo, A. M. ^[2]; Mcclenaghan, J. ^[2];

^[2]

Univ. of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA (United States)
General Atomics, San Diego, CA (United States)
Oak Ridge Associated Univ., Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Chinese Academy of Sciences, Anhui (China)

Excellent confinement has been routinely observed in DIII-D (J. L. Luxon, Nucl. Fusion 2002) high βp discharges, which are characterized by a strong large-radius internal transport barrier (ITB) in almost all kinetic channels. Typically, the ion thermal transport is neoclassical with conventional long-wavelength turbulence instabilities suppressed by α stabilization, while the mechanism for the anomalous electron thermal transport remains unclear [Garofalo et al., Nucl. Fusion 55(12), 123025 (2015)]. A new gyrokinetic analysis shows that while the large values of α in the ITB can stabilize all local electrostatic drift wave (ES-DW) instabilities as well as the kinetic ballooning mode, a new slab-like microtearing mode (MTM) with its eigenfunction mainly peaking on the high field slide is destabilized. This destabilization is shown to be more likely to happen in discharges with high safety factors. Nonlinear gyrokinetic simulations demonstrate that this MTM branch can reproduce the experimentally inferred electron thermal flux in the ITB region and, therefore, provide convincing evidence that the electron temperature profile in the ITB is regulated by the MTM. Extrapolations to the future scenarios, like ITER high βp plasmas, show that the dominant instability is likely to come back to ES-DW due to the lower density gradient and collisionality. However, even in this regime, some unusual features associated with MTMs predicted for DIII-D parameters, such as the high-field-side peaking and slab nature, may remain for the reactor ES-DW.

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Research Organization:: Univ. of California, San Diego, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Fusion Energy Sciences (FES)

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0018287; SC0017992; FG02–95ER54309; FC02–04ER54698; FG02-95ER54309; FC02-04ER54698

OSTI ID:: 1779309

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1773919

Journal Information:: Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 28, Issue 4; ISSN 1070-664X

Publisher:: American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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