Effect of anisotropic thermal transport on the resistive plasma response to resonant magnetic perturbation field

Journal Article · 21 September 2017 · Physics of Plasmas

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5003664 · OSTI ID:1399659

Bai, Xue ^[1]; Liu, Yueqiang ^[2]; Gao, Zhe ^[3]

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1. Southwestern Inst. of Physics, Chengdu (China); Tsinghua Univ., Beijing (China). Dept. of Engineering Physics
2. Southwestern Inst. of Physics, Chengdu (China); General Atomics, San Diego, CA (United States)
3. Tsinghua Univ., Beijing (China). Dept. of Engineering Physics

Plasma response to the resonant magnetic perturbation (RMP) field is numerically investigated by an extended toroidal fluid model, which includes anisotropic thermal transport physics parallel and perpendicular to the total magnetic field. The thermal transport is found to be effective in eliminating the toroidal average curvature induced plasma screening (the so called Glasser-Green-Johnson, GGJ screening) at slow toroidal flow regime, whilst having minor effect on modifying the conventional plasma screening regimes at faster flow. Furthermore, this physics effect of interaction between thermal transport and GGJ screening is attributed to the modification of the radial structure of the shielding current, resulted from the plasma response to the applied field. The modification of the plasma response (shielding current, response field, plasma displacement and the perturbed velocity) also has direct consequence on the toroidal torques produced by RMP. These modelling results show that thermal transport reduces the resonant electromagnetic torque as well as the torque associated with the Reynolds stress, but enhances the neoclassical toroidal viscous torque at slow plasma flow.

• Research Organization: General Atomics, San Diego, CA (United States); Southwestern Institute of Physics, Chengdu (China); Tsinghua Univ., Beijing (China)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC)
• Grant/Contract Number: FG02-95ER54309; FC02-04ER54698; 11605046; 11505050; 2015GB105004; 2015GB104004
• OSTI ID: 1399659
• Report Number(s): DOE-GA-54309; TRN: US1703207
• Journal Information: Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 24, Issue 10; ISSN 1070-664X
• Publisher: American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English