skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: On the inward drift of runaway electrons during the plateau phase of runaway current

Journal Article · · Physics of Plasmas
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4944934· OSTI ID:1256396
 [1];  [2]
  1. Peking Univ., Beijing (China)
  2. Princeton Univ., Princeton, NJ (United States). Princeton Plasma Physics Lab.; Univ. of Science and Technology of China, Hefei (China)

The well observed inward drift of current carrying runaway electrons during runaway plateau phase after disruption is studied by considering the phase space dynamic of runaways in a large aspect ratio toroidal system. We consider the case where the toroidal field is unperturbed and the toroidal symmetry of the system is preserved. The balance between the change in canonical angular momentum and the input of mechanical angular momentum in such a system requires runaways to drift horizontally in configuration space for any given change in momentum space. The dynamic of this drift can be obtained by integrating the modified Euler-Lagrange equation over one bounce time. It is then found that runaway electrons will always drift inward as long as they are decelerating. This drift motion is essentially non-linear, since the current is carried by runaways themselves, and any runaway drift relative to the magnetic axis will cause further displacement of the axis itself. A simplified analytical model is constructed to describe such inward drift both in the ideal wall case and no wall case, and the runaway current center displacement as a function of parallel momentum variation is obtained. The time scale of such displacement is estimated by considering effective radiation drag, which shows reasonable agreement with the observed displacement time scale. Furthermore, this indicates that the phase space dynamic studied here plays a major role in the horizontal displacement of runaway electrons during plateau phase. (C) 2016 AIP Publishing LLC.

Research Organization:
Princeton Plasma Physics Lab. (PPPL), Princeton, NJ (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
2015GB111003; 1126114032; 11305171; 11575185; 11575186; AC02-09-CH11466
OSTI ID:
1256396
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1245033
Report Number(s):
PPPL-5226; PHPAEN
Journal Information:
Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 23, Issue 3; ISSN 1070-664X
Publisher:
American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 3 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (20)

Theory for avalanche of runaway electrons in tokamaks journal October 1997
Runaway electron generation in a cooling plasma journal December 2005
Runaway electrons and the evolution of the plasma current in tokamak disruptions journal October 2006
Chapter 3: MHD stability, operational limits and disruptions journal June 2007
Momentum–space structure of relativistic runaway electrons journal June 1998
Damping of relativistic electron beams by synchrotron radiation journal December 2001
Momentum-space study of the effect of bremsstrahlung radiation on the energy of runaway electrons in tokamaks journal October 2005
Control and dissipation of runaway electron beams created during rapid shutdown experiments in DIII-D journal July 2013
Theory of Two Threshold Fields for Relativistic Runaway Electrons journal April 2015
On the motion of runaway electrons in momentum space journal March 1979
Avalanche runaway growth rate from a momentum-space orbit analysis journal June 1999
Adjoint Fokker-Planck equation and runaway electron dynamics journal January 2016
Behaviour of disruption generated runaways in JET journal August 2002
Control of post-disruption runaway electron beams in DIII-D journal May 2012
Halo current, runaway electrons and disruption mitigation in ITER journal December 1997
Phase-space dynamics of runaway electrons in tokamaks journal September 2010
Generation and loss of runaway electrons following disruptions in JET journal November 1993
Variational symplectic algorithm for guiding center dynamics and its application in tokamak geometry journal April 2009
Transport of runaway and thermal electrons due to magnetic microturbulence journal January 1981
Investigation of ring-like runaway electron beams in the EAST tokamak journal April 2013

Cited By (1)

Spatial transport of runaway electrons in axisymmetric tokamak plasmas journal January 2019

Similar Records

On the inward drift of runaway electrons during the plateau phase of runaway current
Journal Article · Tue Mar 15 00:00:00 EDT 2016 · Physics of Plasmas · OSTI ID:1256396

Phase-space dynamics of runaway electrons in tokamaks
Journal Article · Wed Sep 15 00:00:00 EDT 2010 · Physics of Plasmas · OSTI ID:1256396

Phase-space Dynamics of Runaway Electrons In Tokamaks
Technical Report · Tue Aug 31 00:00:00 EDT 2010 · OSTI ID:1256396