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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…

Plasma Physics · Physics 2026-03-24 Richard Nies , Felix Parra , Michael Barnes , Noah Mandell , William Dorland

In the present work the zonal flow (ZF) growth rate in toroidal ion-temperature-gradient (ITG) mode turbulence including the effects of elongation is studied analytically. The scaling of the ZF growth with plasma parameters is examined for…

Plasma Physics · Physics 2009-11-13 J. Anderson , H. Nordman , R. Singh , J. Weiland

The role of parallel ion motion for zonal flow generation in ion-temperature-gradient (ITG) mode turbulence is investigated with focus on the effects of acoustic modes and toroidicity on the zonal flow. One possible reason for the weak…

Plasma Physics · Physics 2009-11-13 J. Anderson , J. Li , Y. Kishimoto

In the complex 3D magnetic fields of stellarators, ion-temperature-gradient turbulence is shown to have two distinct saturation regimes, as revealed by petascale numerical simulations, and explained by a simple turbulence theory. The first…

Plasma Physics · Physics 2017-10-02 G. G. Plunk , P. Xanthopoulos , P. Helander

Scaling laws for ion temperature gradient driven turbulence in magnetized toroidal plasmas are derived and compared with direct numerical simulations. Predicted dependences of turbulence fluctuation amplitudes, spatial scales, and resulting…

Plasma Physics · Physics 2015-05-27 M. Barnes , F. I. Parra , A. A. Schekochihin

The nonlinear saturation of toroidal Alfven eigenmode (TAE) due to thermal plasma nonlinearities is investigated using gyrokinetic particle-in-cell simulations and theoretical analysis. In the single toroidal mode number simulations with…

The analytical treatment of nonlinear evolution of the shear-flow-modified current driven ion cyclotron instability and shear-flow-driven ion cyclotron kinetic instabilities of magnetic field--aligned plasma shear flow is presented.…

Plasma Physics · Physics 2009-11-13 V. S. Mikhailenko , V. V. Mikhailenko , K. N. Stepanov , N. A. Azarenkov

The observation that fast ions stabilize ion-temperature-gradient-driven microturbulence has profound implications for future fusion reactors. It is also important in optimizing the performance of present-day devices. In this work, we…

Plasma Physics · Physics 2018-06-06 George J. Wilkie , Aylwin Iantchenko , Ian G. Abel , Edmund Highcock , Istvan Pusztai

The impact of magnetic geometry on zonal-flow generation in ion temperature gradient driven turbulence is investigated by means of linear and nonlinear gyrokinetic simulations. The modulation of geodesic curvature on various configurations…

Plasma Physics · Physics 2026-03-02 Motoki Nakata , Seikichi Matsuoka

We demonstrate theoretically and numerically the zonal-flow/drift-wave feedback mechanism for the LH transition in an idealised model of plasma turbulence driven by a small scale instability. Zonal flows are generated by a secondary…

Chaotic Dynamics · Physics 2010-12-17 Colm Connaughton , Sergey Nazarenko , Brenda Quinn

Starting from the assumption that saturation of plasma turbulence driven by temperature-gradient instabilities in fusion plasmas is achieved by a local energy cascade between a long-wavelength outer scale, where energy is injected into the…

Plasma Physics · Physics 2025-10-23 P. G. Ivanov , T. Adkins , D. Kennedy , M. Giacomin , M. Barnes , A. A. Schekochihin

An analytical model for zonal flow generation by toroidal ion-temperature-gradient (ITG) modes, including finite $\beta$ electromagnetic effects, is derived. The derivation is based on a fluid model for ions and electrons and takes into…

Plasma Physics · Physics 2015-05-27 Johan Anderson , Hans Nordman , Rameswar Singh , Raghvendra Singh

Nonlinear entropy transfer processes in toroidal ion temperature gradient (ITG) and electron temperature gradient (ETG) driven turbulence are investigated based on the gyrokinetic entropy balance relations for zonal and non-zonal modes,…

Plasma Physics · Physics 2026-02-27 Motoki Nakata , Tomo-Hiko Watanabe , Hideo Sugama

The generation of large-scale zonal flows by small-scale electrostatic drift waves in electron temperature gradient(ETG) driven turbulence model is considered. The generation mechanism is based on the modulational instability of a finite…

Plasma Physics · Physics 2015-06-26 Yu. A. Zaliznyak , A. I. Yakimenko , V. M. Lashkin

The transition between turbulent and zonal flow dominated states is investigated by varying the ion temperature gradient in nonlinear gyrokinetic simulations. Independent gradient scans reveal three distinct regimes: a turbulent regime at…

Plasma Physics · Physics 2026-05-27 L. N. Marquant , P. Morel , Ö. D. Gürcan

We show that zonal flow can be preferentially excited by intermediate-scale toroidal electron temperature gradient (ETG) turbulence in tokamak plasmas. Previous theoretical studies that yielded an opposite conclusion assumed a fluid…

Plasma Physics · Physics 2021-05-26 Haotian Chen , Stefan Tirkas , Scott E. Parker

The role of self-generated zonal flows in the collisionless trapped-electron mode (CTEM) turbulence is a long-standing open issue in tokamak plasmas. Here we show, for the first time, that the zonal flow excitation in the CTEM turbulence is…

Plasma Physics · Physics 2022-01-26 Haotian Chen , Liu Chen

Zonal flows and turbulence spreading play important roles in magnetic fusion plasma confinement, yet their coupling mechanisms remain elusive. Using global nonlinear gyrokinetic simulations, we show that turbulence spreading transports…

Plasma Physics · Physics 2026-04-23 Min Ki Jung , Sumin Yi , Taik Soo Hahm , Yong-Su Na

Tokamak turbulence, driven by the ion-temperature gradient and occurring in the presence of flow shear, is investigated by means of local, ion-scale, electrostatic gyrokinetic simulations (with both kinetic ions and electrons) of the…

Plasma Physics · Physics 2017-01-10 F. van Wyk , E. G. Highcock , A. A. Schekochihin , C. M. Roach , A. R. Field , W. Dorland

Magnetised plasma turbulence can have a multiscale character: instabilities driven by mean temperature gradients drive turbulence at the disparate scales of the ion and the electron gyroradii. Simulations of multiscale turbulence, using…

Plasma Physics · Physics 2020-11-25 M. R. Hardman , M. Barnes , C. M. Roach
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