Nonlinear and Non-ideal Effects on FRC Stability

Technical Report · Mon Oct 21 04:00:00 EDT 2002

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/809930· OSTI ID:809930

Belova, E V ^[1]; Davidson, R C; Ji, H; Yamada, M

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1. Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory

New computational results are presented which advance the understanding of the stability properties of the Field-Reversed Configuration (FRC). We present results of hybrid and two-fluid (Hall-MHD) simulations of prolate FRCs in strongly kinetic and small-gyroradius, MHD-like regimes. The n = 1 tilt instability mechanism and stabilizing factors are investigated in detail including nonlinear and resonant particle effects, particle losses along the open field lines, and Hall stabilization. It is shown that the Hall effect determines the mode rotation and change in the linear mode structure in the kinetic regime; however, the reduction in the growth rate is mostly due to the finite Larmor radius effects. Resonant particle effects are important in the large gyroradius regime regardless of the separatrix shape, and even in cases when a large fraction of the particle orbits are stochastic. Particle loss along the open field lines has a destabilizing effect on the tilt mode and contributes to the ion spin up in toroidal direction. The nonlinear evolution of unstable modes in both kinetic and small-gyroradius FRCs is shown to be considerably slower than that in MHD simulations. Our simulation results demonstrate that a combination of kinetic and nonlinear effects is a key for understanding the experimentally observed FRC stability properties.

• Research Organization: Princeton Plasma Physics Lab., NJ (US)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (US)
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-76CH03073
• OSTI ID: 809930
• Report Number(s): PPPL-3759
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
FIELD-REVERSED CONFIGURATIONS
FIELD-REVERSED THETA PINCH DEVICES
HALL EFFECT
INSTABILITY
KINETICS
LARMOR RADIUS
NUMERICAL STIMULATION
PARTICAL WAVE INTERACTION
PARTICLE LOSSES
ROTATION
SHAPE
SIMULATION
SPIN
STABILITY
STABILIZATION