Mechanism of Stabilization of Ballooning Modes by Toroidal Rotation Shear in Tokamaks

Journal Article · Fri May 06 00:00:00 EDT 2005 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.94.175001· OSTI ID:20696239

Furukawa, M; Tokuda, S ^[1]

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1. Naka Fusion Research Establishment, Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute, Naka, Ibaraki 311-0193 (Japan)

A ballooning perturbation in a toroidally rotating tokamak is expanded by square-integrable eigenfunctions of an eigenvalue problem associated with ballooning modes in a static plasma. Especially a weight function is chosen such that the eigenvalue problem has only the discrete spectrum. The eigenvalues evolve in time owing to toroidal rotation shear, resulting in a countably infinite number of crossings among them. The crossings cause energy transfer from an unstable mode to the infinite number of stable modes; such transfer works as the stabilization mechanism of the ballooning mode.

• OSTI ID: 20696239
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Journal Issue: 17 Vol. 94; ISSN 0031-9007; ISSN PRLTAO
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
BALLOONING INSTABILITY
EIGENFUNCTIONS
EIGENVALUES
ENERGY TRANSFER
INTEGRAL CALCULUS
MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMICS
PLASMA
PLASMA CONFINEMENT
ROTATION
STABILIZATION
TOKAMAK DEVICES
WEIGHTING FUNCTIONS