Diamagnetic thresholds for sawtooth cycling in tokamak plasmas

作者：Halpern Federico D^*; Luetjens Hinrich; Luciani Jean Francois

来源：Physics of Plasmas, 2011, 18(10): 102501.

DOI：10.1063/1.3646305

• kink instability
• magnetic reconnection
• plasma magnetohydrodynamics
• plasma oscillations
• plasma simulation
• plasma temperature
• plasma toroidal confinement
• sawtooth instability
• Tokamak devices

The cycling dynamics of the internal kink mode, which drives sawtooth oscillations in tokamak plasmas, is studied using the three dimensional, non-linear magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) code XTOR-2F [H. Luumltjens and J.-F. Luciani, J. Comput. Phys. 229, 8130 (2010)]. It is found that sawtooth cycling, which is characterized by quiescent ramps and fast crashes in the experiment, can be recovered in two-fluid MHD provided that a criterion of diamagnetic stabilization is fulfilled. The simulation results indicate that diamagnetic effects alone may be sufficient to drive sawteeth with complete magnetic reconnection in high temperature Ohmic plasmas.

• 出版日期2011-10