Finite orbit width effect in ion collisional transport in TJ-II
- Instituto de Biocomputacion y Fisica de Sistemas Complejos, 50009 Zaragoza (Spain)
The validity of the traditional local diffusive approach and of the use of monoenergetic calculations has been studied for the stellarator TJ-II [Alejaldre et al., Fusion Technol. 17, 131 (1990)]: it is shown to be doubtful, under some circumstances, even in a purely collisional description of transport. The diffusion in physical space starting from Dirac-delta-like initial conditions has been studied using the code Integrator of Stochastic Differential Equations for Plasmas by Castejon et al. [Plasma Phys. Controlled Fusion 49, 753 (2007)]. Particles may experience large radial excursions from their original magnetic surfaces in a single collisional time. The contribution of these particles to the flux may make it nondiffusive; non-Gaussian density distributions, characterized by long tails, are observed. In the velocity space, there are important variations in the average particle kinetic energy after one collision time. We discuss the effect of this fact over the calculation of monoenergetic transport coefficients and their convolution. A simple analysis based on Hurst exponents has shown nevertheless that the description of transport by means of a pinch term and an effective transport coefficient is more correct than expected.
- OSTI ID:
- 21277077
- Journal Information:
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 16, Issue 5; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.3126583; (c) 2009 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1070-664X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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