Drift modes with differential rotation and passing electrons

Technical Report · Mon Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 1985

OSTI ID:5250760

Liu, J; Horton, W; Sedlak, J

The stability of drift modes in a radially bounded cylindrical model of the tandem mirror central cell is analyzed as a function of plasma rotation and passing electron density. Analytic solutions for solid-body rotation and variable wall-to-plasma radius are used to derive formulas for the threshold and cutoff values of the passing-to-trapped electron density ratio. For certain density ratios all low m modes are unstable for all solid body rotational speeds. The effect of shear in the rotational profiles is shown to be a significant stabilizing effect on the rotationally-driven interchange instability. For typical profiles with the rotational velocity ..cap omega..(r) monotonically decreasing with radius, we show that for some parameters the rotational modes are stabilized by shear well before the onset of the shear-driven instabilities.

• Research Organization: Texas Univ., Austin (USA). Inst. for Fusion Studies
• DOE Contract Number: FG05-80ET53088
• OSTI ID: 5250760
• Report Number(s): DOE/ET/53088-195; ON: DE85017243
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
700107* -- Fusion Energy-- Plasma Research-- Instabilities
DRIFT INSTABILITY
ELECTRON DENSITY
INSTABILITY
MAGNETIC MIRRORS
MOTION
OPEN PLASMA DEVICES
PLASMA
PLASMA INSTABILITY
PLASMA MICROINSTABILITIES
ROTATION
SHEAR
STABILIZATION
TANDEM MIRRORS
THERMONUCLEAR DEVICES