Formation of solitary zonal structures via the modulational instability of drift waves

Zhou, Yao; Zhu, Hongxuan; Dodin, I. Y.

doi:10.1088/1361-6587/ab16a8

Title: Formation of solitary zonal structures via the modulational instability of drift waves

Journal Article · Thu May 23 00:00:00 EDT 2019 · Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6587/ab16a8· OSTI ID:1543455

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Princeton Plasma Physics Lab. (PPPL), Princeton, NJ (United States)
Princeton Plasma Physics Lab. (PPPL), Princeton, NJ (United States); Princeton Univ., NJ (United States)

The dynamics of the radial envelope of a weak coherent drift-wave (DW) is approximately governed by a nonlinear Schrödinger equation (NLSE), which emerges as a limit of the modified Hasegawa–Mima equation (mHME). The NLSE has well-known soliton solutions, and its modulational instability (MI) can naturally generate solitary structures. Here, we demonstrate that this simple model can adequately describe the formation of solitary zonal structures in the mHME, but only when the amplitude of the coherent DW is relatively small. At larger amplitudes, the MI produces stationary zonal structures instead. Furthermore, we find that incoherent DWs with beam-like spectra can also be modulationally unstable to the formation of solitary or stationary zonal structures, depending on the beam intensity. Notably, we show that these DWs can be modeled as quantum-like particles ('driftons') within a recently developed phase-space (Wigner–Moyal) formulation, which intuitively depicts the solitary zonal structures as quasi-monochromatic drifton condensates. Quantum-like effects, such as diffraction, are essential to these condensates; thus, the latter cannot be described by wave-kinetic models that are based on the ray approximation.

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Research Organization:: Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), Princeton, NJ (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-09CH11466

OSTI ID:: 1543455

Journal Information:: Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion, Vol. 61, Issue 7; ISSN 0741-3335

Publisher:: IOP ScienceCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 12 works

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