On resistive interchange, double tearing, and resonant and non-resonant infernal modes in spherical tokamak negative central shear discharges

Jardin, S. C.

doi:10.1063/5.0282017

On resistive interchange, double tearing, and resonant and non-resonant infernal modes in spherical tokamak negative central shear discharges

Journal Article · Fri Aug 01 00:00:00 EDT 2025 · Physics of Plasmas

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0282017· OSTI ID:2586613

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Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), Princeton, NJ (United States)

We examine the linear and nonlinear stability of a sequence of reversed shear NSTX equilibria with the same toroidal current density and pressure profile but with different toroidal field strengths. All equilibria have two q = 2 surfaces and have q > 1 everywhere. For this sequence, which all have β_P ∼ 0.5, as the minimum value of q decreases below about 1.4, the localized resistive interchange criterion is strongly violated, and the unstable mode with toroidal mode number n=1 changes its dominant poloidal mode number m from a (m,n)=(2,1) double tearing mode to a non-resonant (1,1) infernal mode. This (1,1) mode nonlinearly flattens both the current density and the pressure near the magnetic axis. The higher-n unstable modes are all resistive infernal modes localized around the surface where q has a minimum and the magnetic shear vanishes. They generally saturate nonlinearly at low amplitude but can cause magnetic surface breakup near the axis.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), Princeton, NJ (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-09CH11466

OSTI ID:: 2586613

Journal Information:: Physics of Plasmas, Journal Name: Physics of Plasmas Journal Issue: 8 Vol. 32; ISSN 1070-664X; ISSN 1089-7674

Publisher:: AIP PublishingCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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