Kinetic description of rotating Tokamak plasmas with anisotropic temperatures in the collisionless regime

Journal Article · Tue Nov 15 04:00:00 EST 2011 · Physics of Plasmas

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3656978· OSTI ID:22047064

Cremaschini, Claudio ^[1]; Tessarotto, Massimo ^[2]

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1. International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) and INFN, Trieste (Italy)
2. Department of Mathematics and Informatics, University of Trieste (Italy)

A largely unsolved theoretical issue in controlled fusion research is the consistent kinetic treatment of slowly-time varying plasma states occurring in collisionless and magnetized axisymmetric plasmas. The phenomenology may include finite pressure anisotropies as well as strong toroidal and poloidal differential rotation, characteristic of Tokamak plasmas. Despite the fact that physical phenomena occurring in fusion plasmas depend fundamentally on the microscopic particle phase-space dynamics, their consistent kinetic treatment remains still essentially unchallenged to date. The goal of this paper is to address the problem within the framework of Vlasov-Maxwell description. The gyrokinetic treatment of charged particles dynamics is adopted for the construction of asymptotic solutions for the quasi-stationary species kinetic distribution functions. These are expressed in terms of the particle exact and adiabatic invariants. The theory relies on a perturbative approach, which permits to construct asymptotic analytical solutions of the Vlasov-Maxwell system. In this way, both diamagnetic and energy corrections are included consistently into the theory. In particular, by imposing suitable kinetic constraints, the existence of generalized bi-Maxwellian asymptotic kinetic equilibria is pointed out. The theory applies for toroidal rotation velocity of the order of the ion thermal speed. These solutions satisfy identically also the constraints imposed by the Maxwell equations, i.e., quasi-neutrality and Ampere's law. As a result, it is shown that, in the presence of nonuniform fluid and EM fields, these kinetic equilibria can sustain simultaneously toroidal differential rotation, quasi-stationary finite poloidal flows and temperature anisotropy.

• OSTI ID: 22047064
• Journal Information: Physics of Plasmas, Journal Name: Physics of Plasmas Journal Issue: 11 Vol. 18; ISSN PHPAEN; ISSN 1070-664X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
ANALYTICAL SOLUTION
ANISOTROPY
ASYMPTOTIC SOLUTIONS
AXIAL SYMMETRY
BOLTZMANN-VLASOV EQUATION
DISTRIBUTION FUNCTIONS
ELECTRON TEMPERATURE
ION TEMPERATURE
IONS
MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMICS
MAXWELL EQUATIONS
PHASE SPACE
PLASMA
PLASMA PRESSURE
ROTATION
THERMONUCLEAR REACTORS
TOKAMAK DEVICES