J W Connor C J Ham R J Hastie A Zocco
Kinetic treatments of drift tearing modes that match an inner, resonant layer solution to an external MHD solution, can fail to match the ideal MHD boundary condition on the parallel electric field. In this paper we demonstrate how consideration of ion sound and ion Landau damping effects achieves this, placing the theory on a firm footing. The …
Preprint PublishedN. F. Loureiro A. A. Schekochihin A. Zocco
Magnetic reconnection in strongly magnetized (low-beta), weakly collisional plasmas is investigated by using a novel fluid-kinetic model [Zocco and Schekochihin, Phys. Plasmas 18, 102309 (2011)] which retains nonisothermal electron kinetics. It is shown that electron heating via Landau damping (linear phase mixing) is the dominant dissipation mecha…
PublishedJ.W. Connor R.J. Hastie A. Zocco
Many models for anomalous transport consider the turbulent E × B transport arising from electrostatic micro-instabilities. In this paper we investigate whether the perturbed magnetic field that is associated with such instabilities at small but finite values of ß can lead to significant stochastic magnetic field transport. Using the tearing parit…
PublishedAlessandro Zocco Alexander A. Schekochihin
A minimal model for magnetic reconnection and, generally, low-frequency dynamics in low-beta plasmas is proposed. The model combines analytical and computational simplicity with physical realizability: it is a rigorous limit of gyrokinetics for plasma beta of order the electron-ion mass ratio. The model contains collisions and can be used both in t…
PublishedI. T. Chapman R. Scannell W. A. Cooper J. P. Graves R. J. Hastie G. Naylor A. Zocco
Thomson scattering measurements with subcentimeter spatial resolution have been made during a sawtooth crash in a Mega Ampere Spherical Tokamak fusion plasma. The unparalleled resolution of the temperature profile has shed new light on the mechanisms that underlie the sawtooth. As magnetic reconnection occurs, the temperature gradient at the island…
Published