Related papers: Saturation of magnetised plasma turbulence by prop…
We propose a quantitative model of ion temperature gradient driven turbulence in toroidal magnetized plasmas. In this model, the turbulence is regulated by zonal flows, i.e. mode saturation occurs by a zonal-flow-mediated energy cascade…
We present a theory of the nonlinear growth of zonal flows in magnetized plasma turbulence, by the mechanism of secondary instability. The theory is derived for general magnetic geometry, and is thus applicable to both tokamaks and…
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…
The toroidal geometry of tokamaks and stellarators is known to play a crucial role in the linear physics of zonal flows, leading to e.g. the Rosenbluth-Hinton residual and geodesic acoustic modes. However, descriptions of the nonlinear…
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…
The prevailing paradigm for plasma turbulence associates a unique stationary state to given equilibrium parameters. We report the discovery of bistable turbulence in a strongly magnetised plasma. Two distinct states, obtained with identical…
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…
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…
Impacts of isotope ion mass on trapped electron mode (TEM) driven turbulence and zonal flows in magnetically confined fusion plasmas are investigated. Gyrokinetic simulations of TEM-driven turbulence in three-dimensional magnetic…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Nonlinear gyrokinetic simulations have been conducted to investigate turbulent transport in tokamak plasmas with rotational shear. At sufficiently large flow shears, linear instabilities are suppressed, but transiently growing modes drive…
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…
It is shown that magnetic islands generated by pressure-gradient-driven turbulence are common across a wide range of conditions. The interaction among turbulence, magnetic island and other large scale structures (the zonal flow and the…
The transport of heat out of tokamak plasmas by turbulence is the dominant mechanism limiting the performance of fusion reactors. Turbulence can be driven by the ion temperature gradient (ITG) and suppressed by toroidal sheared flows.…
First-principles numerical simulations are used to describe a transport bifurcation in a differentially rotating tokamak plasma. Such a bifurcation is more probable in a region of zero magnetic shear than one of finite magnetic shear…
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…
Recent gyrokinetic stability calculations have revealed that the spherical tokamak is susceptible to tearing parity instabilities with length scales of a few ion Larmor radii perpendicular to the magnetic field lines. Here we investigate…