Energetic particle physics with applications in fusion and space plasmas

Technical Report · Thu May 01 04:00:00 EDT 1997

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/304141· OSTI ID:304141

Cheng, C Z

Energetic particle physics is the study of the effects of energetic particles on collective electromagnetic (EM) instabilities and energetic particle transport in plasmas. Anomalously large energetic particle transport is often caused by low frequency MHD instabilities, which are driven by these energetic particles in the presence of a much denser background of thermal particles. The theory of collective energetic particle phenomena studies complex wave-particle interactions in which particle kinetic physics involving small spatial and fast temporal scales can strongly affect the MHD structure and long-time behavior of plasmas. The difficulty of modeling kinetic-MHD multiscale coupling processes stems from the disparate scales which are traditionally analyzed separately: the macroscale MHD phenomena are studied using the fluid MHD framework, while microscale kinetic phenomena are best described by complicated kinetic theories. The authors have developed a kinetic-MHD model that properly incorporates major particle kinetic effects into the MHD fluid description. For tokamak plasmas a nonvariational kinetic-MHD stability code, the NOVA-K code, has been successfully developed and applied to study problems such as the excitation of fishbone and Toroidal Alfven Eigenmodes (TAE) and the sawtooth stabilization by energetic ions in tokamaks. In space plasmas the authors have employed the kinetic-MHD model to study the energetic particle effects on the ballooning-mirror instability which explains the multisatellite observation of the stability and field-aligned structure of compressional Pc 5 waves in the magnetospheric ring current plasma.

• Research Organization: Princeton Univ., Princeton Plasma Physics Lab., NJ (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Research, Washington, DC (United States); National Science Foundation, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-76CH03073
• OSTI ID: 304141
• Report Number(s): PPPL--3247; ON: DE97052910; CNN: Grant ATM-9523331
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

66 PHYSICS
70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
ALFVEN WAVES
CHARGED-PARTICLE TRANSPORT
EARTH MAGNETOSPHERE
KINETIC EQUATIONS
MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMICS
PLASMA FLUID EQUATIONS
PLASMA INSTABILITY
PLASMA SIMULATION
SAWTOOTH OSCILLATIONS
TAIL IONS