Peter J. Catto P. Helander J. W. Connor R. D. Hazeltine
The edge plasma of a tokamak is affected by atomic physics processes and can have density and temperature variations along the magnetic field that strongly modify edge transport. A closed system of equations in the Pfirsch–Schluter regime is presented that can be solved for the radial and poloidal variation of the plasma density, electron and ion…
PublishedJ. B. Taylor J. W. Connor P. Helander
Transport barriers and transitions between modes of low and high confinement in tokamak plasmas are often attributed to suppression of turbulence by a shear flow related to a plasma gradient, e.g., of density. However, such shear flow is also affected by the second derivative of density. When this is introduced there is no unique relation between f…
PublishedJ. W. Connor R. J. Hastie H. R. Wilson R. L. Miller
A new formalism for analyzing the magnetohydrodynamic stability of a limiter tokamak edge plasma is developed. Two radially localized, high toroidal mode number n instabilities are studied in detail: a peeling mode and an edge ballooning mode. The peeling mode, driven by edge current density and stabilized by edge pressure gradient, has features wh…
PublishedP. Helander R. J. Hastie J. W. Connor
The bootstrap current in a non-Maxwellian tokamak plasma with electron cyclotron heating is calculated. The calculation is exact in the limit of highly charged ions, where pitch-angle scattering dominates over quasilinear diffusion, and shows that the current is entirely determined by the pressure of the trapped electrons. If the ion charge is fini…
PublishedPeter J. Catto S. I. Krasheninnikov J. W. Connor
To gain insight into divertor operation, similarity techniques are employed to investigate whether model systems of equations plus boundary conditions admit scaling transformations that lead to useful divertor scaling laws. These can be used to perform similarity experiments or more fully exploit large computer simulations. Fluid plasma models of t…
PublishedH. R. Wilson J. W. Connor R. J. Hastie C. C. Hegna
A kinetic theory for magnetic islands in a low collision frequency tokamak plasma is presented. Self-consistent equations for the islands’ width, w , and propagation frequency, w , are derived. These include contributions from the perturbed bootstrap current and the toroidally enhanced ion polarization drift. The bootstrap current is ind…
PublishedJ. W. Connor H. R. Wilson
A theory for the existence of noninteracting small-scale, "drift" magnetic islands in a high temperature tokamak plasma is presented. This situation contrasts with that discussed by Rebut and Hugon [Plasma Phys. Controlled Fusion 33, 1085 (1991)] which involves a background "sea" of magnetic turbulence caused by island overlap. The islands are driv…
PublishedJ. B. Taylor H. R. Wilson
Short wavelength fluctuations may be a source of anomalous transport in toroidal plasmas. Early investigations concerned electron and ion modes that occur only at a particular radius and have a localised eigenfunction: such modes do not seem important for transport. Recently, Connor, Taylor and Wilson [1] described electron modes that occur at all …
PublishedPeter J. Catto J. W. Connor
Earlier two-dimensional (radial and poloidal angle), analytically tractable ion kinetic models of the scrape-off layer (SOL) in which a steady state is achieved by balancing the streaming loss of ions to the divertor target plates with the radial diffusion of ions from the core are unable to distinguish between limited and diverted plasmas. The mod…
Published