Related papers: A Ritz variational principle for local collisionle…
The Eulerian variational formulation is presented to obtain governing equations of the electromagnetic turbulent gyrokinetic system. A local momentum balance in the system is derived from the invariance of the Lagrangian of the system under…
Small-scale turbulence originating from microinstabilities limits the energy confinement time in magnetic confinement fusion. Here we develop a semi-analytical dispersion relation based on lowest-order solutions to the gyrokinetic equations…
Gyrokinetics is a rich and rewarding playground to study some of the mysteries of modern physics. In this thesis I present work, motivated by the quest for fusion energy, which seeks to uncover some of the inner workings of turbulence in…
The Eulerian variational formulation of the gyrokinetic system with electrostatic turbulence is presented in general spatial coordinates by extending our previous work [H. Sugama, {\it et al}., Phys.\ Plasmas {\bf 25}, 102506 (2018)]. The…
This paper continues the systematic investigation of diffusive shear instabilities initiated in Part I of this series. In this work, we primarily focus on quantifying the impact of non-local mixing, which is not taken into account in Zahn's…
A variation principle for mass transport in solids is derived that recasts transport coefficients as minima of local thermodynamic average quantities. The result is independent of diffusion mechanism, and applies to amorphous and…
The use of gyrokinetics, wherein phase-space coordinate transformations result in a phase-space dimensionality reduction as well as the removal of fast time scales, has enabled the simulation of microturbulence in fusion devices. The…
Abstract Simulation domain in field-aligned coordinates of the electrostatic gyrokinetic nonlinear turbulence global code, NLT, is extended to include the magnetic axis. The artificial boundary near the magnetic axis is replaced by the…
Accurate prediction of mixing transition induced by interfacial instabilities is vital for engineering applications, but has remained a great challenge for decades. For engineering practices, Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes simulation…
Curvature-driven instabilities are ubiquitous in magnetised fusion plasmas. By analysing the conservation laws of the gyrokinetic system of equations, we demonstrate that the well-known spatial localisation of these instabilities to regions…
The tertiary instability is believed to be important for governing magnetised plasma turbulence under conditions of strong zonal flow generation, near marginal stability. In this work, we investigate its role for a collisionless strongly…
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…
Differential rotation is known to suppress linear instabilities in fusion plasmas. However, even in the absence of growing eigenmodes, subcritical fluctuations that grow transiently can lead to sustained turbulence. Here transient growth of…
The stability of shear flows of electrically conducting fluids, with respect to finite amplitude three-dimensional localized disturbances is considered. The time evolution of the fluid impulse integral, characterizing such disturbances, for…
Radiation damping of the motion of charged particles in relativistic, optically thin plasmas is described within the framework of the covariant gyrokinetic theory. It involves description of the collisionless single-particle dynamics as…
We study the validity of gyrokinetic theory by examining the destruction of magnetic moment adiabatic invariant in the presence of fluctuations. Contrary to common assertions, it is shown for the first time that the gyrokinetic theory rests…
Local regression is widely used to explore spatial heterogeneity, but anisotropic or effectively low-dimensional neighborhoods can produce ill-conditioned local solves, causing coefficient variation driven by numerical artifacts rather than…
We solve the linearized gyrokinetic equation, quasineutrality condition, and Ampere's law to obtain the dispersion relation of microtearing modes (MTMs) in collisionless low-beta toroidal plasmas. Consistent with past studies, we find that…
A gyrokinetic theory is developed under a set of orderings applicable to the edge region of tokamaks and other magnetic confinement devices, as well as to internal transport barriers. The result is a practical set equations that is valid…
In this paper we argue that differential rotation can possibly sustain hydrodynamic turbulence in the absence of magnetic field. We explain why the non-linearities of the hydrodynamic equations (i.e. turbulent diffusion) should not be…