Universal instability for wavelengths below the ion Larmor scale

We demonstrate that the universal mode driven by the density gradient in a plasma slab can be absolutely unstable even in the presence of reasonable magnetic shear. Previous studies from the 1970s that reached the opposite conclusion used an eigenmode equation limited to $L_x \gg \rho_i$, where $L_x$ is the scale length of the mode in the radial direction, and $\rho_i$ is the ion Larmor radius. Here we instead use a gyrokinetic approach which does not have this same limitation. Instability is found for perpendicular wavenumbers $k_y$ in the range $0.7 \lesssim k_y \rho_i \lesssim 100$, and for sufficiently weak magnetic shear: $L_s / L_n \ge 17$, where $L_s$ and $L_n$ are the scale lengths of magnetic shear and density. Thus, the plasma drift wave in a sheared magnetic field may be unstable even with no temperature gradients, no trapped particles, and no magnetic curvature

Collisionless Reconnection in the Large Guide Field Regime: Gyrokinetic Versus Particle-in-Cell Simulations

Results of the first validation of large guide field, $B_g / \delta B_0 \gg 1$, gyrokinetic simulations of magnetic reconnection at a fusion and solar corona relevant $\beta_i = 0.01$ and solar wind relevant $\beta_i = 1$ are presented, where $\delta B_0$ is the reconnecting field. Particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations scan a wide range of guide magnetic field strength to test for convergence to the gyrokinetic limit. The gyrokinetic simulations display a high degree of morphological symmetry, to which the PIC simulations converge when $\beta_i B_g / \delta B_0 \gtrsim 1$ and $B_g / \delta B_0 \gg 1$. In the regime of convergence, the reconnection rate, relative energy conversion, and overall magnitudes are found to match well between the PIC and gyrokinetic simulations, implying that gyrokinetics is capable of making accurate predictions well outside its regime of formal applicability. These results imply that in the large guide field limit many quantities resulting from the nonlinear evolution of reconnection scale linearly with the guide field.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, accepted as PoP lette

Rotation and Neoclassical Ripple Transport in ITER

Neoclassical transport in the presence of non-axisymmetric magnetic fields causes a toroidal torque known as neoclassical toroidal viscosity (NTV). The toroidal symmetry of ITER will be broken by the finite number of toroidal field coils and by test blanket modules (TBMs). The addition of ferritic inserts (FIs) will decrease the magnitude of the toroidal field ripple. 3D magnetic equilibria with toroidal field ripple and ferromagnetic structures are calculated for an ITER steady-state scenario using the Variational Moments Equilibrium Code (VMEC). Neoclassical transport quantities in the presence of these error fields are calculated using the Stellarator Fokker-Planck Iterative Neoclassical Conservative Solver (SFINCS). These calculations fully account for $E_r$, flux surface shaping, multiple species, magnitude of ripple, and collisionality rather than applying approximate analytic NTV formulae. As NTV is a complicated nonlinear function of $E_r$, we study its behavior over a plausible range of $E_r$. We estimate the toroidal flow, and hence $E_r$, using a semi-analytic turbulent intrinsic rotation model and NUBEAM calculations of neutral beam torque. The NTV from the $\rvert n \rvert = 18$ ripple dominates that from lower $n$ perturbations of the TBMs. With the inclusion of FIs, the magnitude of NTV torque is reduced by about 75% near the edge. We present comparisons of several models of tangential magnetic drifts, finding appreciable differences only for superbanana-plateau transport at small $E_r$. We find the scaling of calculated NTV torque with ripple magnitude to indicate that ripple-trapping may be a significant mechanism for NTV in ITER. The computed NTV torque without ferritic components is comparable in magnitude to the NBI and intrinsic turbulent torques and will likely damp rotation, but the NTV torque is significantly reduced by the planned ferritic inserts

Finite Larmor radius effects on non-diffusive tracer transport in a zonal flow

Finite Larmor radius (FLR) effects on non-diffusive transport in a prototypical zonal flow with drift waves are studied in the context of a simplified chaotic transport model. The model consists of a superposition of drift waves of the linearized Hasegawa-Mima equation and a zonal shear flow perpendicular to the density gradient. High frequency FLR effects are incorporated by gyroaveraging the ExB velocity. Transport in the direction of the density gradient is negligible and we therefore focus on transport parallel to the zonal flows. A prescribed asymmetry produces strongly asymmetric non- Gaussian PDFs of particle displacements, with L\'evy flights in one direction but not the other. For zero Larmor radius, a transition is observed in the scaling of the second moment of particle displacements. However, FLR effects seem to eliminate this transition. The PDFs of trapping and flight events show clear evidence of algebraic scaling with decay exponents depending on the value of the Larmor radii. The shape and spatio-temporal self-similar anomalous scaling of the PDFs of particle displacements are reproduced accurately with a neutral, asymmetric effective fractional diffusion model.Comment: 14 pages, 13 figures, submitted to Physics of Plasma

Viriato: a Fourier-Hermite spectral code for strongly magnetised fluid-kinetic plasma dynamics

We report on the algorithms and numerical methods used in Viriato, a novel fluid-kinetic code that solves two distinct sets of equations: (i) the Kinetic Reduced Electron Heating Model (KREHM) equations [Zocco & Schekochihin, Phys. Plasmas 18, 102309 (2011)] (which reduce to the standard Reduced-MHD equations in the appropriate limit) and (ii) the kinetic reduced MHD (KRMHD) equations [Schekochihin et al., Astrophys. J. Suppl. 182:310 (2009)]. Two main applications of these equations are magnetised (Alfvenic) plasma turbulence and magnetic reconnection. Viriato uses operator splitting (Strang or Godunov) to separate the dynamics parallel and perpendicular to the ambient magnetic field (assumed strong). Along the magnetic field, Viriato allows for either a second-order accurate MacCormack method or, for higher accuracy, a spectral-like scheme composed of the combination of a total variation diminishing (TVD) third order Runge-Kutta method for the time derivative with a 7th order upwind scheme for the fluxes. Perpendicular to the field Viriato is pseudo-spectral, and the time integration is performed by means of an iterative predictor-corrector scheme. In addition, a distinctive feature of Viriato is its spectral representation of the parallel velocity-space dependence, achieved by means of a Hermite representation of the perturbed distribution function. A series of linear and nonlinear benchmarks and tests are presented, including a detailed analysis of 2D and 3D Orszag-Tang-type decaying turbulence, both in fluid and kinetic regimes.Comment: 42 pages, 15 figures, submitted to J. Comp. Phy