Stability of drift-wave modons in the presence of temperature gradients

Journal Article · Fri Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1993 · Physics of Fluids B; (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.860872· OSTI ID:6783887

Jovanovic, D ^[1]; Horton, W ^[2]

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1. Institute of Physics, P.O. Box 57, Belgrade (Yugoslavia)
2. Institute for Fusion Studies, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712 (United States)

In the homogeneous Hasegawa--Mima equation, the dipole vortex or modon solution is well known to be robustly stable from both analytic and numerical studies. In the inhomogeneous plasma where [del][ital T][sub [ital e]][ne]0 the corresponding vortex has an external structure extending into the high-temperature region. Lyapunov stability method is used to determine the stability properties of these extended vortex structures. The overall growth rate of deformation caused by the presence of temperature inhomogeneity is shown to be bounded by ([ital R]/[ital L][sub [ital T]])[sup 2], where [ital R] is the radius of the core of the vortex and [ital L][sub [ital T]] is the scale length of the temperature gradient. The most important source of instability is identified as the excitation of monopolar and dipolar perturbations with short spatial scales [approx lt][ital R], which are approximately independent of the presence of the density and temperature gradients.

• OSTI ID: 6783887
• Journal Information: Physics of Fluids B; (United States), Journal Name: Physics of Fluids B; (United States) Vol. 5:1; ISSN 0899-8221; ISSN PFBPEI
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
700340* -- Plasma Waves
Oscillations
& Instabilities-- (1992-)
DIPOLES
DRIFT INSTABILITY
INHOMOGENEOUS PLASMA
INSTABILITY
INSTABILITY GROWTH RATES
MULTIPOLES
PLASMA
PLASMA INSTABILITY
PLASMA MICROINSTABILITIES
TEMPERATURE GRADIENTS
VORTICES