Properties of microturbulence in toroidal plasmas with reversed magnetic shear
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, California 92697 (United States)
Electrostatic drift wave turbulence in tokamak plasmas with reversed magnetic shear is studied using global gyrokinetic particle simulations. The linear eigenmode of the ion temperature gradient (ITG) instability exhibits a mode gap around the minimum safety factor (q{sub min}) region, particularly when q{sub min} is an integer, due to the rarefaction of rational surfaces. The collisionless trapped electron mode (CTEM) instability is suppressed in the negative-shear region due to the reversal of the toroidal precessional drift of trapped electrons. However, after nonlinear saturation, the ITG gap is filled up by the turbulence spreading and the CTEM fluctuation propagates into the stable negative-shear region. The steady state turbulence occupies the whole volume without any identifiable gap or coherent structures of the heat conductivity, perturbed temperature, or zonal flows in the q{sub min} location or the reversed shear region. Our finding indicates that the electrostatic drift wave turbulence itself does not support either linear or nonlinear mechanism for the formation of internal transport barriers in the reversed magnetic shear when q{sub min} crossing an integer.
- OSTI ID:
- 21272718
- Journal Information:
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 16, Issue 10; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.3243918; (c) 2009 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1070-664X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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