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Trapped particle precession and sub-bounce zonal flow dynamics in tokamaks

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2018

W. Sengupta*
Affiliation:
IREAP, University of Maryland, College Park, USA
A. B. Hassam
Affiliation:
IREAP, University of Maryland, College Park, USA
*
Email address for correspondence: wricksg@gmail.com
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Abstract

A drift-kinetic calculation in an axisymmetric tokamak, with super-diamagnetic flows, is presented to elucidate the relation between the radial electric field, $E_{r}$ , zonal flows and the rapid precession of the trapped particle (TP) population. It has been shown earlier (Rosenbluth & Hinton, Phys. Rev. Lett., vol. 80(4), 1998, p. 724, hereafter RH) that an initial radial electric field results in geodesic acoustic mode oscillations which subsequently Landau damp, resulting in a much smaller final residual electric field, and accompanying parallel zonal flows. We observe an apparent paradox: the final angular momentum in the RH parallel zonal flow is much smaller than the angular momentum expected from the well-known rapid precession of the trapped particle population in the RH residual electric field. We reconcile this paradox by illuminating the presence of a population of reverse circulating particle flows that, dominantly, are equal and opposite to the rapid TP precession. Mathematically, the calculation is facilitated by transforming to an energy coordinate shifted from conventional by an amount proportional to $E_{r}$ . We also discuss the well-known RH coefficient in the context of effective mass and show how the TP precession and the opposite circulating flows contribute to this mass. Finally, we show that in the long wavelength limit, the RH flows and RH coefficient arise as a natural consequence of conservation of toroidal angular momentum and the second adiabatic invariant.

Information

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2018 
Figure 0

Figure 1. Comparison of initial and final RH flows. The initial $\boldsymbol{E}\times \boldsymbol{B}$ flow $U_{E}(0)$, shown in black, reduces to the final $U_{E}(\infty )$, shown in red. To conserve angular momentum, an average parallel flow $\langle U_{\Vert }\rangle$ must develop, as shown in purple. The field line makes an angle ${\approx}\unicode[STIX]{x1D716}/q$ with the toroidal (horizontal) direction.

Figure 1

Figure 2. Bead-on-wire toy model. The rod models a field line inclined at angle $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}$ to the toroidal axis. The rod moves rigidly under force $F_{\bot }$. Coordinates $(r,s)$ measure distances parallel and perpendicular to $\boldsymbol{B}$. A deeply trapped particle (blue) is constrained to move only along the $\unicode[STIX]{x1D701}$ axis. A freely circulating particle (red) moves freely along the rod.

Figure 2

Figure 3. Contours of constant ${\mathcal{E}}$ (a) and ${\mathcal{E}}_{\ast }$ (b). The downward shift is given by the precession drift $(=I\unicode[STIX]{x1D711}^{\prime }/B\sim qU_{E}/\unicode[STIX]{x1D716})$.

Figure 3

Figure 4. Upgraded bead-on-wire toy model showing a particle of mass $m$ moving along a field line inclined at an angle $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}\approx \unicode[STIX]{x1D716}/q$ to the toroidal direction. The field line moves rigidly under applied force $F_{\bot }$. The particle also feels the mirror force, modelled by the potential $V(\unicode[STIX]{x1D703})$, as it moves along $\boldsymbol{B}$.

Figure 4

Figure 5. Phase portrait of a pendulum driven by $F_{\bot }$. In black and blue we show oppositely moving freely circulating particle. In purple we show the orbit of a deeply trapped particle and in red we show a barely circulating particle preferentially changing direction in the presence of small $F_{\bot }$.