M.D.J. Cole S.L. Newton S.C. Cowley N.F. Loureiro D. Dickinson C. Roach J.W. Connor
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 ß (the ratio of plasma to magnetic pressure). The extended system of characteristic equations is formulated, for a dissipative fluid model developed from the gyrokinetic equ…
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…
PublishedN. Arcis N.F. Loureiro F. Militello
The nonlinear saturation of the tearing mode is revisited in slab geometry by taking into account higher-order harmonics in the outer solution. The general formalism for tackling this problem in the case of a vanishing current gradient at the resonant surface is derived. It is shown that, although the higherorder harmonics lead to corrections in th…
PublishedF. Militello M. Romanelli R. J. Hastie N. F. Loureiro
The generation of zonal magnetic fields in laboratory fusion plasmas is predicted by theoretical and numerical models and was recently observed experimentally. It is shown that the modification of the current density gradient associated with such corrugations can significantly affect the stability of the tearing mode. A simple scaling law is derive…
Published