MHD Alfven stability in ignited toroidal plasmas

Technical Report · Sat Oct 01 04:00:00 EDT 1988

OSTI ID:7030393

Fu, G Y; Van Dam, J W; Rosenbluth, M N; Ross, D W; Zhang, Y Z; Berk, H L; Mahajan, S M; Cheng, C Z; Miller, R L; Wang, X H

The presence of fusion-product alpha particles in an ignition tokamak can significantly modify the stability behavior of the burning plasma. In this paper, the effects of toroidicity are retained in a theoretical description of two global-type shear Alfven modes that can be destabilized by the alpha particles. Toroidicity can lead to stabilization of the global shear Alfven eigenmode, but it induces a shear Alfven gap eigenmode whose growth rate is even larger, although these modes may saturate nonlinearly. The stabilizing influence of highly energetic particles on low-frequency MHD ballooning and internal kink modes is also explored; in particular, ion diamagnetic frequency effects may stabilize fishbone oscillations, as has been observed with monster sawteeth in JET with ICRF heating. 10 refs., 3 figs.

• Research Organization: Texas Univ., Austin (USA). Inst. for Fusion Studies
• DOE Contract Number: FG05-80ET53088
• OSTI ID: 7030393
• Report Number(s): DOE/ET/53088-346; IFSR-346; ON: TI89001071
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
700107* -- Fusion Energy-- Plasma Research-- Instabilities
ALFVEN WAVES
ALPHA PARTICLES
BALLOONING INSTABILITY
CHARGED PARTICLES
CLOSED PLASMA DEVICES
DISPERSION RELATIONS
EQUILIBRIUM
HYDROMAGNETIC WAVES
INSTABILITY
KINK INSTABILITY
MHD EQUILIBRIUM
PLASMA INSTABILITY
PLASMA MACROINSTABILITIES
SHEAR
THERMONUCLEAR DEVICES
TOKAMAK DEVICES