H. R. Wilson P. B. Snyder G. T. A. Huysmans R. L. Miller
A new computational tool, edge localized instabilities in tokamaks equilibria (ELITE), has been developed to help our understanding of short wavelength instabilities close to the edge of tokamak plasmas. Such instabilities may be responsible for the edge localized modes observed in high confinement H-mode regimes, which are a serious concern for ne…
PublishedJ. P. Graves R. O. Dendy K. I. Hopcraft E. Jakeman
Recent measurements in tokamak plasmas provide clear evidence for rapid nondiffusive transport and non-Gaussian fluctuations, and have been widely interpreted in terms of the sandpile and self-organized criticality (SOC) paradigms. Many of the statistical physics inferences that can be drawn from observations of, for example, avalanching transport …
PublishedJ. Greenhough S.C. Chapman S. Chaty R.O. Dendy G. Rowlands
Whilst direct observations of internal transport in accretion disks are not yet possible, measurement of the energy emitted from accreting astrophysical systems can provide useful information on the physical mechanisms at work. Here we examine the unbroken multi-year time variation of the total X-ray flux from three sources: Cygnus X-1, the microqu…
PublishedS. E. Sharapov B. Alper H. L. Berk D. N. Borba B. N. Breizman et al.
Experiments designed for generating internal transport barriers in the plasmas of the Joint European Torus [JET, P. H. Rebut et al. , Proceedings of the 10th International Conference, Plasma Physics and Controlled Nuclear Fusion, London ~ International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, (1985), Vol. I, p. 11 ] reveal cascades of Alfven perturbations wit…
PublishedP. B. Snyder H. R. Wilson J. R. Ferron L. L. Lao A. W. Leonard et al.
A model based on magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) stability of the tokamak plasma edge region is presented, which describes characteristics of edge localized modes (ELMs) and the pedestal. The model emphasizes the dual role played by large bootstrap currents driven by the sharp pressure gradients in the pedestal region. Pedestal currents reduce the edge m…
PublishedJ.-M. Noterdaeme E. Righi J. Degrassie V. Chan K. Kirov et al.
Detailed measurements of the rotation profile in L-mode plasmas heated by ICRF only (H minority in D), show a distinct off-axis maximum in the co-current direction. There is a slight dependence on the position of the resonance layer: the off-axis maximum in the rotation profile is modestly higher for a high field side position of the resonance laye…
PublishedA. Sykes J.-W. Ahn R. Akers E. Arends P. G. Carolan et al.
First physics results are presented from MAST (Mega-Amp Spherical Tokamak), one of the new generation of purpose built spherical tokamaks (STs) now commencing operation. Some of these results demonstrate, for the first time, the novel effects of low aspect ratio, for example, the enhancement of resistivity due to neo-classical effects. H-mode is ac…
PublishedF. L. Waelbroeck J.W. Connor H. R. Wilson
Gyrokinetic theory is used to investigate the effect of the polarization drift on magnetic island evolution. Three regimes are found. For island phase velocities between the ion- and electric-drift velocities, the polarization current is shown to be stabilizing. For phase velocities between the electric- and electron- drift velocities, the island e…
Published