Kinetic effects on global Alfven waves

Thesis/Dissertation · Wed Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1992

OSTI ID:7160059

Betti, R

A theoretical investigation is carried out on the effects of the kinetic particle response on global type shear-Alfven waves in tokamaks. Two kinds of wave-particle interactions have been identified: (1) resonant interaction between energetic circulating particles and high frequency Alfven waves, (2) nonresonant interaction between trapped particles and low frequency modes. The author focuses on gap modes which are discrete modes whose real frequency lies in gas of the Alfven continuum induced by geometrical effects. A new gap mode, the Ellipticity Induced Alfven Eigenmode (EAE), is induced by the ellipticity of the plasma cross section that couples the m and m + 2 poloidal harmonics. This mode is of the general class as the Toroidicity Induced Alfven Eigenmode (TAE). In configurations with finite ellipticity, the EAE (n; m, m + 2) has a global structure centered about the q = (m + 1)/n surface. In the presence of an energetic ion species any Alfven wave can be destabilized via transit resonance with circulating particles. A sufficient stability criterion is derived for energetic particle-Alfven mode. To include the stabilizing effects of the electron and ion Landau damping a general treatment using a newly derived drift kinetic description of each species is carried out. The analysis has been restricted to Alfven gap modes. Low frequency modes have been investigated using the new drift kinetic model. Focusing on the internal kink mode, the main kinetic contributions arises from trapped particles which process in the toroidal direction. The trapped bulk ions can destabilize the high frequency branch of the internal kink. The numerical solution of the dispersion relation shows that a sharp threshold in [beta][sub p] exists for the instability to grow and that stabilizing effects come from the trapped electron response.

• Research Organization: Massachusetts Inst. of Tech., Cambridge, MA (United States)
• OSTI ID: 7160059
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
700340* -- Plasma Waves
Oscillations
& Instabilities-- (1992-)
ALFVEN WAVES
CLOSED PLASMA DEVICES
EQUATIONS
HYDROMAGNETIC WAVES
INTERACTIONS
KINETIC EQUATIONS
PARTICLE INTERACTIONS
THERMONUCLEAR DEVICES
TOKAMAK DEVICES
TRAPPING