Excitation of zonal flow by drift waves in toroidal plasmas
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, California 92697 (United States)
- Plasma Physics Laboratory, Princeton University, P.O. Box 451, Princeton, New Jersey 08543 (United States)
An analytical dispersion relation is derived which shows that, in toroidal plasmas, zonal flows can be spontaneously excited via modulations in the radial envelope of a single-n coherent drift wave, with n the toroidal mode number. Predicted instability features are verified by three-dimensional global gyrokinetic simulations of the ion-temperature-gradient mode. Nonlinear equations for mode amplitudes demonstrate saturation of the linearly unstable pump wave and nonlinear oscillations of the drift-wave intensity and zonal flows, with a parameter-dependent period doubling route to chaos. (c) 2000 American Institute of Physics.
- OSTI ID:
- 20217073
- Journal Information:
- Physics of Plasmas, Journal Name: Physics of Plasmas Journal Issue: 8 Vol. 7; ISSN PHPAEN; ISSN 1070-664X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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