Collisionless kinetic theory of oblique tearing instabilities

Baalrud, S. D.; Bhattacharjee, A.; Daughton, W.

doi:10.1063/1.5020777

Title: Collisionless kinetic theory of oblique tearing instabilities

Journal Article · Thu Feb 15 00:00:00 EST 2018 · Physics of Plasmas

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5020777· OSTI ID:1429052

Baalrud, S. D. ^[1]; Bhattacharjee, A. ^[2]; Daughton, W. ^[3]

Univ. of Iowa, Iowa City, IA (United States). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
Princeton Univ., NJ (United States). Dept. of Astrophysical Sciences; Princeton Plasma Physics Lab. (PPPL), Princeton, NJ (United States)
Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

The linear dispersion relation for collisionless kinetic tearing instabilities is calculated for the Harris equilibrium. In contrast to the conventional 2D geometry, which considers only modes at the center of the current sheet, modes can span the current sheet in 3D. Modes at each resonant surface have a unique angle with respect to the guide field direction. Both kinetic simulations and numerical eigenmode solutions of the linearized Vlasov-Maxwell equations have recently revealed that standard analytic theories vastly overestimate the growth rate of oblique modes. We find that this stabilization is associated with the density-gradient-driven diamagnetic drift. The analytic theories miss this drift stabilization because the inner tearing layer broadens at oblique angles sufficiently far that the assumption of scale separation between the inner and outer regions of boundarylayer theory breaks down. The dispersion relation obtained by numerically solving a single second order differential equation is found to approximately capture the drift stabilization predicted by solutions of the full integro-differential eigenvalue problem. A simple analytic estimate for the stability criterion is provided.

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Research Organization:: Princeton Plasma Physics Lab. (PPPL), Princeton, NJ (United States); Univ. of Iowa, Iowa City, IA (United States); Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Fusion Energy Sciences (FES); National Science Foundation (NSF)

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0016159; AGS-0962698; AC52-06NA25396

OSTI ID:: 1429052

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1421302; OSTI ID: 1438147; OSTI ID: 1777874

Report Number(s):: LA-UR-18-21045; TRN: US1802606

Journal Information:: Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 25, Issue 2; ISSN 1070-664X

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

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 5 works

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