Zonal flow excitation by drift waves in toroidal plasmas

Conference · Tue Jun 13 00:00:00 EDT 2000

OSTI ID:756505

Chen, L ^[1]; Lin, Z; White, R

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1. Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory

Recent 3D gyrokinetic and gyrofluid simulations in toroidal plasmas have demonstrated that zonal flows play a crucial role in regulating the nonlinear evolution of electrostatic drift-wave instabilities such as the ion temperature gradient (ITG) modes and, as a consequence, the level of the anomalous ion thermal transport, and that zonal flows could be spontaneously excited by ITG turbulence, suggesting parametric instability processes as the generation mechanism. Diamond et. al. have proposed the modulational instability of drift-wave turbulence ( plasmons ) in a slab-geometry treatment.

• Research Organization: Princeton Plasma Physics Lab., NJ (US)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Research (ER) (US)
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-76CH03073
• OSTI ID: 756505
• Report Number(s): Cfpaper-4192
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
DRIFT INSTABILITY
PARAMETRIC INSTABILITIES
PLASMA DRIFT
PLASMA SIMULATION
PLASMA WAVES
TOKAMAK DEVICES
TURBULENCE