Effect of Collisionality on Kinetic Stability of the Resistive Wall Mode

Journal Article · Fri Feb 18 00:00:00 EST 2011 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVLETT.106.075004· OSTI ID:21532316

Berkery, J W; Sabbagh, S A ^[1]; Betti, R; Bell, R E; Gerhardt, S P; LeBlanc, B P ^[2]; Yuh, H ^[3]

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1. Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027 (United States)
2. Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08543 (United States)
3. Nova Photonics, Inc., Princeton, New Jersey 08543 (United States)

The impact of collisionless, energy-independent, and energy-dependent collisionality models on the kinetic stability of the resistive wall mode is examined for high pressure plasmas in the National Spherical Torus Experiment. Future devices will have decreased collisionality, which previous stability models predict to be universally destabilizing. In contrast, in kinetic theory reduced ion-ion collisions are shown to lead to a significant stability increase when the plasma rotation frequency is in a stabilizing resonance with the ion precession drift frequency. When the plasma is in a reduced stability state with rotation in between resonances, collisionality will have little effect on stability.

• OSTI ID: 21532316
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Vol. 106, Issue 7; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.075004; (c) 2011 American Institute of Physics; ISSN 0031-9007
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
ENERGY DEPENDENCE
ION-ION COLLISIONS
PLASMA
PRECESSION
PRESSURE RANGE MEGA PA 10-100
RESONANCE
ROTATION
STABILITY
COLLISIONS
ION COLLISIONS
MOTION
PRESSURE RANGE
PRESSURE RANGE MEGA PA