Radial drift of plasma blobs in a toroidal magnetic field with fully kinetic and reduced fluid models
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)
- Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA (United States)
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
In curved magnetic geometries, field-aligned regions of enhanced plasma pressure and density, termed ‘blobs,’ move as coherent filaments across the magnetic field lines. Coherent blobs account for a significant fraction of transport at the edges of magnetic fusion experiments and arise in naturally-occurring space plasmas. This work examines the dynamics of blobs with a fully kinetic electromagnetic particle-in-cell code and with a drift-reduced fluid code. In low-beta regimes with moderate blob speeds, good agreement is found in the maximum blob velocity between the two simulation schemes and simple analytical estimates. The fully kinetic code demonstrates that blob speeds saturate near the initial sound speed, which is a regime outside the validity of the reduced fluid model.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Fusion Energy Sciences (FES); Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA)
- DOE Contract Number:
- 89233218CNA000001
- OSTI ID:
- 2377297
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR--23-31357
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English