Publication Date:
2014-12-05
Description:
The neoclassical toroidal plasma viscosity torque and electromagnetic torque, generated by tearing mode (TM) in a toroidal plasma, are numerically investigated using the MARS-Q code [Liu et al ., Phys. Plasmas 20 , 042503 (2013)]. It is found that an initially unstable tearing mode can intrinsically drive a toroidal plasma flow resulting in a steady state solution, in the absence of the external momentum input and external magnetic field perturbation. The saturated flow is in the order of 0.5% ω A at the q = 2 rational surface in the considered case, with q and ω A being the safety factor and the Alfven frequency at the magnetic axis, respectively. The generation of the toroidal flow is robust, being insensitive to the given amplitude of the perturbation at initial state. On the other hand, the flow amplitude increases with increasing the plasma resistivity. Furthermore, the initially unstable tearing mode is fully stabilized by non-linear interaction with the self-generated toroidal flow.
Print ISSN:
1070-664X
Electronic ISSN:
1089-7674
Topics:
Physics
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