Related papers: Mesoscopic transport in KSTAR plasmas: avalanches …
A new basis has been found for the theory of self-organization of transport avalanches and jet zonal flows in L-mode tokamak plasma, the so-called "plasma staircase." The jet zonal flows are considered as a wave packet of coupled nonlinear…
Staircase formation and layering is studied in simplified, potential vorticity conserving models of plasmas and geophysical fluids, by investigating turbulent self-organisation and nonlinear saturation with different mechanisms of free…
Inhomogeneous mixing and the consequent mesoscopic layered structure have been observed in many physical systems, including magnetically confined fusion plasmas. Especially, in plasmas, mixing can be enhanced through turbulence spreading by…
We present experimental observations suggesting that the non-diffusive avalanche-like events are a prevalent and universal process of the electron turbulent heat transport in tokamak core plasmas. They are observed in the low confinement…
We study the coarsening dynamics of a two dimensional system via lattice Boltzmann numerical simulations. The system under consideration is a biphasic system consisting of domains of a dispersed phase closely packed together in a continuous…
Using a simple lattice model for granular media, we present a scenario of self-organization that we term self-organized structuring where the steady state has several unusual features: (1) large scale space and/or time inhomogeneities and…
Plasma equilibria reconstructed from the Mega-Amp Spherical Tokamak (MAST) have sufficient resolution to capture plasma evolution during the short period between edge-localized modes (ELMs). Immediately after the ELM steep gradients in…
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…
The self-organization of a thermally relativistic magnetized plasma comprising of electrons, positrons and static ions is investigated. The self-organized state is found to be the superposition of three distinct Beltrami fields known as…
Adiabatic invariants foliate phase space, and impart a macro-scale hierarchy by separating microscopic variables. On a macroscopic leaf, long-scale ordered structures are created while maximizing entropy. A plasma confined in a…
Self-organization in an unmagnetized collisionless plasma (in this paper) refers to formation of transient coherent structures such as collective oscillations (electrostatic waves) or magnetic fields resulting from so-called kinetic effects…
The existence of kinetic ballooning mode (KBM) high order (non-ground) eigenstates for tokamak plasmas with steep gradient is demonstrated via gyrokinetic electromagnetic eigenvalue solutions, which reveals that eigenmode parity transition…
Self-interaction is the process by which a microturbulence eigenmode that is extended along the direction parallel to the magnetic field interacts with itself non-linearly. This effect is particularly significant in gyrokinetic simulations…
Barriers have been identified in magnetically confined plasmas reducing the particle transport and improving the confinement. One of them, the primary shearless barriers are associated to extrema of non-monotonic plasma profiles.…
Using numerical simulations we examine colloids with a long-range Coulomb interaction confined in a two-dimensional trough potential undergoing dynamical compression. As the depth of the confining well is increased, the colloids move via…
Based on a recent theory (Coppi, Nuclear Fusion, 42, 1, 2002) of spontaneous toroidal rotation in tokamaks (Lee et al, Phys Rev Lett, 91, 205003, 2003) and in astrophysical accretion disks, we propose that an analogous process could be at…
The emergence and merging of high-density coherent structures - plasma blobs - is a recurrent phenomenon in the Scrape-off layer (SOL) of a tokamak plasma that has a significant impact on the rate of convective transport in that region. We…
Transitions from turbulence to order are studied experimentally in thin fluid layers and magnetically confined toroidal plasma. It is shown that turbulence self-organizes through the mechanism of spectral condensation. The spectral…
The behavior of granular media under quasi-static loading has recently been shown to attain a stable evolution state corresponding to a manifold in the space of micromechanical variables. This state is characterized by sudden transitions…
The flow shear associated with the differential toroidal rotation of tokamak plasmas breaks an underlying symmetry of the turbulent fluctuations imposed by the up-down symmetry of the magnetic equilibrium. Using experimental…