Related papers: Ideal MHD Ballooning modes, shear flow and the sta…
The spectrum of ideal magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) pressure-driven (ballooning) modes in strongly nonaxisymmetric toroidal systems is difficult to analyze numerically owing to the singular nature of ideal MHD caused by lack of an inherent…
The common feature of sheared flows of an ideal fluid and plasma in magnetic field is the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability. This instability is described by identical equations in mentioned two cases. The wave equation for the eigenmodes in the…
Ballooning instabilities are investigated in three-dimensional magnetic toroidal plasma confinement systems with low global magnetic shear. The lack of any continuous symmetry in the plasma equilibrium can lead to these modes being…
Solutions to a model 2D eigenmode equation describing micro-instabilities in tokamak plasmas are presented that demonstrate a sensitivity of the mode structure and stability to plasma profiles. In narrow regions of parameter space, with…
Steady plasma flows have been studied almost exclusively in systems with continuous symmetry or in open domains. In the absence of continuous symmetry, the lack of a conserved quantity makes the study of flows intrinsically challenging. In…
Toroidal drift waves with unconventional mode structures and non-ground eigenstates, which differ from typical ballooning structure mode, are found to be important recently by large scale global gyrokinetic simulations and especially become…
Instability to high toroidal mode number ($n$) ballooning modes has been proposed as the primary gradient-limiting mechanism for tokamak equilibria with negative triangularity ($\delta$) shaping, preventing access to strong H-mode regimes…
A linearly unstable, sinusoidal $E \times B$ shear flow is examined in the gyrokinetic framework in both the linear and nonlinear regimes. In the linear regime, it is shown that the eigenmode spectrum is nearly identical to hydrodynamic…
Kinetic ballooning modes (KBM) are widely believed to play a critical role in disruptive dynamics as well as turbulent transport in tokamaks. While the nonlinear evolution of ballooning modes has been proposed as a mechanism for detonation…
Strongly driven ion-scale turbulence in tokamak plasmas is shown to be regulated by a new propagating zonal flow mode, the toroidal secondary mode, which is nonlinearly supported by the turbulence. The mode grows and propagates due to the…
First experimental measurements are presented for the kink instability in a linear plasma column which is insulated from an axial boundary by finite sheath resistivity. Instability threshold below the classical Kruskal-Shafranov threshold,…
We propose a phenomenological yet very general model in a form of generalized complex Ginzburg-Landau equation to understand the dynamics of the quasi-periodic fluid instabilities (called edge-localized modes) in the boundary of toroidal…
A general formulation of the problem of calculating the spectrum of stable and unstable eigenmodes of linearized perturbations about a magnetically confined toroidal plasma is presented. The analysis is based on a new hydromagnetic…
We outline how to calculate the scalar damping term during a cosmological phase transition from kinetic theory. We determine the scalar damping rate from top quarks and weak gauge bosons in a Standard Model-like theory. We find that the…
Incompressible, inviscid, irrotational, and unsteady flows with circulation $\Gamma$ around a distorted toroidal bubble are considered. A general variational principle that determines the evolution of the bubble shape is formulated. For a…
The linear and renormalized nonlinear kinetic theory of drift instability of plasma shear flow across the magnetic field, which has the Kelvin's method of shearing modes or so-called non-modal approach as its foundation, is developed. The…
The competition between the drive and stabilization of plasma microinstabilities by sheared flow is investigated, focusing on the ion temperature gradient mode. Using a twisting mode representation in sheared slab geometry, the…
We have extended our study of the competition between the drive and stabilization of plasma microinstabilities by sheared flow to include electromagnetic effects at low plasma $\beta$ (the ratio of plasma to magnetic pressure). The extended…
Sweet-Parker current sheets in high Lundquist number plasmas are unstable to tearing, suggesting they will not form in physical systems. Understanding magnetic reconnection thus requires study of the stability of a current sheet as it…
The rapid deposition of energy by Edge Localised Modes (ELMs) onto plasma facing components, is a potentially serious issue for large Tokamaks such as ITER and DEMO. The trigger for ELMs is believed to be the ideal Magnetohydrodynamic…