Spontaneous poloidal spin-up of tokamaks and the transition to the H mode

Journal Article · Mon Jan 21 04:00:00 EST 1991 · Physical Review Letters; (USA)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.66.309· OSTI ID:6037660

Hassam, A B; Antonsen, Jr, T M; Drake, J F; Liu, C S ^[1]

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1. Laboratory for Plasma Research, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742 (US)

The radial transport of toroidal angular momentum and circulation in a tokamak resulting from diffusion that is poloidally asymmetric is shown to produce an instability of the poloidal rotation. This instability, due to Stringer, sets in where the local particle-confinement time is smaller than the damping time of poloidal flow and leads to poloidal velocity shar. The nonlinear interplay between the poloidal spin-up and turulence-driven anoamlous transport is shown to lead to bifurcated equilibria of the type observed in the {ital L}-to-{ital H}-mode transition in tokamaks.

• OSTI ID: 6037660
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters; (USA), Journal Name: Physical Review Letters; (USA) Vol. 66:3; ISSN PRLTA; ISSN 0031-9007
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
700107* -- Fusion Energy-- Plasma Research-- Instabilities
ANGULAR MOMENTUM
ANNULAR SPACE
ASYMMETRY
CLOSED CONFIGURATIONS
CLOSED PLASMA DEVICES
CONFIGURATION
CONFINEMENT
DATA
DIFFUSION
ELECTRIC FIELDS
INFORMATION
MAGNETIC FIELD CONFIGURATIONS
MOTION
NONLINEAR PROBLEMS
NUMERICAL DATA
PLASMA
PLASMA CONFINEMENT
ROTATION
SPACE
THEORETICAL DATA
THERMONUCLEAR DEVICES
TOKAMAK DEVICES
TOROIDAL CONFIGURATION