Simulation of microtearing turbulence in national spherical torus experiment
Abstract
Thermal energy confinement times in National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) dimensionless parameter scans increase with decreasing collisionality. While ion thermal transport is neoclassical, the source of anomalous electron thermal transport in these discharges remains unclear, leading to considerable uncertainty when extrapolating to future spherical tokamak (ST) devices at much lower collisionality. Linear gyrokinetic simulations find microtearing modes to be unstable in high collisionality discharges. First non-linear gyrokinetic simulations of microtearing turbulence in NSTX show they can yield experimental levels of transport. Magnetic flutter is responsible for almost all the transport (~98%), perturbed field line trajectories are globally stochastic, and a test particle stochastic transport model agrees to within 25% of the simulated transport. Most significantly, microtearing transport is predicted to increase with electron collisionality, consistent with the observed NSTX confinement scaling. While this suggests microtearing modes may be the source of electron thermal transport, the predictions are also very sensitive to electron temperature gradient, indicating the scaling of the instability threshold is important. In addition, microtearing turbulence is susceptible to suppression via sheared E × B flows as experimental values of E × B shear (comparable to the linear growth rates) dramatically reduce the transport below experimental values. Refinements inmore »
- Authors:
-
- Princeton Plasma Physics Lab. (PPPL), Princeton, NJ (United States)
- General Atomics, San Diego, CA (United States)
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States)
- Nova Photonics Inc., Princeton, NJ (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF); Univ. of California, Oakland, CA (United States); Princeton Univ., NJ (United States); UT-Battelle LLC/ORNL, Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States); Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States); General Atomics, San Diego, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1564859
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-05CH11231; AC02-09CH11466; AC05-00OR22725; AC52-07NA27344; FG02-99ER54527; FG03-95ER54309
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Physics of Plasmas
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 19; Journal Issue: 5; Journal ID: ISSN 1070-664X
- Publisher:
- American Institute of Physics (AIP)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY; Physics
Citation Formats
Guttenfelder, W., Candy, J., Kaye, S. M., Nevins, W. M., Wang, E., Zhang, J., Bell, R. E., Crocker, N. A., Hammett, G. W., LeBlanc, B. P., Mikkelsen, D. R., Ren, Y., and Yuh, H. Simulation of microtearing turbulence in national spherical torus experiment. United States: N. p., 2012.
Web. doi:10.1063/1.3694104.
Guttenfelder, W., Candy, J., Kaye, S. M., Nevins, W. M., Wang, E., Zhang, J., Bell, R. E., Crocker, N. A., Hammett, G. W., LeBlanc, B. P., Mikkelsen, D. R., Ren, Y., & Yuh, H. Simulation of microtearing turbulence in national spherical torus experiment. United States. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3694104
Guttenfelder, W., Candy, J., Kaye, S. M., Nevins, W. M., Wang, E., Zhang, J., Bell, R. E., Crocker, N. A., Hammett, G. W., LeBlanc, B. P., Mikkelsen, D. R., Ren, Y., and Yuh, H. Fri .
"Simulation of microtearing turbulence in national spherical torus experiment". United States. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3694104. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1564859.
@article{osti_1564859,
title = {Simulation of microtearing turbulence in national spherical torus experiment},
author = {Guttenfelder, W. and Candy, J. and Kaye, S. M. and Nevins, W. M. and Wang, E. and Zhang, J. and Bell, R. E. and Crocker, N. A. and Hammett, G. W. and LeBlanc, B. P. and Mikkelsen, D. R. and Ren, Y. and Yuh, H.},
abstractNote = {Thermal energy confinement times in National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) dimensionless parameter scans increase with decreasing collisionality. While ion thermal transport is neoclassical, the source of anomalous electron thermal transport in these discharges remains unclear, leading to considerable uncertainty when extrapolating to future spherical tokamak (ST) devices at much lower collisionality. Linear gyrokinetic simulations find microtearing modes to be unstable in high collisionality discharges. First non-linear gyrokinetic simulations of microtearing turbulence in NSTX show they can yield experimental levels of transport. Magnetic flutter is responsible for almost all the transport (~98%), perturbed field line trajectories are globally stochastic, and a test particle stochastic transport model agrees to within 25% of the simulated transport. Most significantly, microtearing transport is predicted to increase with electron collisionality, consistent with the observed NSTX confinement scaling. While this suggests microtearing modes may be the source of electron thermal transport, the predictions are also very sensitive to electron temperature gradient, indicating the scaling of the instability threshold is important. In addition, microtearing turbulence is susceptible to suppression via sheared E × B flows as experimental values of E × B shear (comparable to the linear growth rates) dramatically reduce the transport below experimental values. Refinements in numerical resolution and physics model assumptions are expected to minimize the apparent discrepancy. In cases where the predicted transport is strong, calculations suggest that a proposed polarimetry diagnostic may be sensitive to the magnetic perturbations associated with the unique structure of microtearing turbulence.},
doi = {10.1063/1.3694104},
journal = {Physics of Plasmas},
number = 5,
volume = 19,
place = {United States},
year = {Fri Apr 27 00:00:00 EDT 2012},
month = {Fri Apr 27 00:00:00 EDT 2012}
}
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