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Title: Nonlinear gyrokinetic tokamak physics

Miscellaneous ·
OSTI ID:5019035

The gyrokinetic reduced description of low-frequency and small-perpendicular-wavelength nonlinear tokamak dynamics is presented in three different versions: the reduced dynamical description of test particles moving in electromagnetic fields; the reduced gyrokinetic description of the self-consistent interaction of particles and fields through the Maxwell-Vlasov equations; and the reduced description of nonlinear fluid motion. The unperturbed tokamak plasma is described in terms of a noncanonical Hamiltonian guiding-center theory. The unperturbed guiding-center tokamak plasma is then perturbed by gyrokinetic electromagnetic fields and consequently the perturbed guiding-center dynamical system acquires new gyrophase dependence. The perturbation analysis that follows makes extensive use of Lie-transform perturbation techniques. Because the electromagnetic perturbations affect both the Hamiltonian and the Poisson-bracket structure, the Phase-space Lagrangian Lie perturbation method is used. The description of the reduced test-particle dynamics is given in terms of a non-canonical Hamiltonian gyrocenter theory. The description of the reduced kinetic dynamics is concerned with the self consistent response of the guiding-center plasma and is described in terms of the nonlinear gyrokinetic Maxwell-Vlasov equations. It is also shown that the gyrokinetic Maxwell-Vlasov system possesses a gyrokinetic energy adiabatic invariant and that, in both the linear and nonlinear (quadratic) approximations, the corresponding energy invariants are exact. The description of the reduced fluid dynamics is concerned with the derivation of a closed set of reduced fluid equations. Three generations of reduced fluid models are presented: the reduced MHD equations; the reduced FLR-MHD equations; and the gyrofluid equations.

Research Organization:
Princeton Univ., NJ (United States)
OSTI ID:
5019035
Resource Relation:
Other Information: Thesis (Ph. D.)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English