A quasilinear formulation of turbulence driven current
- Theoretical Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545 (United States)
Non-inductive current drive mechanisms, such as the familiar neoclassical bootstrap current correspond to an essential component to the realization of steady state tokamak operation. In this work, we discuss a novel collisionless mechanism through which a mean plasma current may be driven in the presence of microturbulence. In analogy with the traditional neoclassical bootstrap current drive mechanism, in which the collisional equilibrium established between trapped and passing electrons results in the formation of a steady state plasma current, here we show that resonant scattering of electrons by drift wave microturbulence provides an additional means of determining the equilibrium between trapped and passing electrons. The resulting collisionless equilibrium is shown to result in the formation of an equilibrium current whose magnitude is a function of the thermodynamic forces. A mean field formulation is utilized to incorporate the above components into a unified framework through which both collisional as well as collisionless current drive mechanisms may be self-consistently treated. Utilizing a linearized Fokker-Planck collision operator, the plasma current in the presence of both collisions as well as turbulent stresses is computed, allowing for the relative strength of these two mechanisms to be quantified as a function of collisionality and fluctuation amplitude.
- OSTI ID:
- 22252031
- Journal Information:
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 21, Issue 2; Other Information: (c) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1070-664X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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