Self-excitation of the ballooning tearing mode and the nature of anomalous transport in toroidal magnetic confinement systems

Technical Report · Fri Aug 01 00:00:00 EDT 1986

OSTI ID:6891940

Zakharov, L E; Riedel, K S

The self-excitation of the ballooning tearing mode in toroidal systems with strong magnetic fields is discovered. This instability is driven by the pressure gradient at small islands and arises from the coupling of poloidal harmonics. This instability is always unstable with respect to perturbations of finite size. In our opinion, it is the main mechanism for plasma turbulence and therefore defines the energy confinement time in tokamaks and stellarators.

• Research Organization: New York Univ., NY (USA). Courant Inst. of Mathematical Sciences
• DOE Contract Number: FG02-86ER53223
• OSTI ID: 6891940
• Report Number(s): DOE/ER/53223-17; MF-111; ON: DE87003419
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
BALLOONING INSTABILITY
EXCITATION
STELLARATORS
TEARING INSTABILITY
TOKAMAK DEVICES
CONFINEMENT TIME
MAGNETIC ISLANDS
TRANSPORT THEORY
TURBULENCE
CLOSED PLASMA DEVICES
ENERGY-LEVEL TRANSITIONS
INSTABILITY
MAGNETIC FIELD CONFIGURATIONS
PLASMA INSTABILITY
PLASMA MACROINSTABILITIES
THERMONUCLEAR DEVICES
700107* - Fusion Energy- Plasma Research- Instabilities