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Title: Theory of the Drift-Wave Instability at Arbitrary Collisionality

Journal Article · · Physical Review Letters
 [1];  [2];  [3]
  1. École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) (Switzerland); Univ. de Lisboa (Portugal)
  2. École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) (Switzerland)
  3. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)

A numerically efficient framework that takes into account the effect of the Coulomb collision operator at arbitrary collisionalities is introduced. Such a model is based on the expansion of the distribution function on a Hermite-Laguerre polynomial basis to study the effects of collisions on magnetized plasma instabilities at arbitrary mean-free path. Focusing on the drift-wave instability, we show that our framework allows retrieving established collisional and collisionless limits. At the intermediate collisionalities relevant for present and future magnetic nuclear fusion devices, deviations with respect to collision operators used in state-of-the-art turbulence simulation codes show the need for retaining the full Coulomb operator in order to obtain both the correct instability growth rate and eigenmode spectrum, which, for example, may significantly impact quantitative predictions of transport. In conclusion, the exponential convergence of the spectral representation that we propose makes the representation of the velocity space dependence, including the full collision operator, more efficient than standard finite difference methods.

Research Organization:
Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Grant/Contract Number:
FG02-91ER54109
OSTI ID:
1610186
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1478595
Journal Information:
Physical Review Letters, Vol. 121, Issue 16; ISSN 0031-9007
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 14 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (4)

Electron skin depth in low density plasmas journal January 2020
The collisional drift wave instability in steep density gradient regimes journal January 2019
Linear theory of electron-plasma waves at arbitrary collisionality journal April 2019
Linear Theory of Electron-Plasma Waves at Arbitrary Collisionality text January 2018

Figures / Tables (3)


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