Edge turbulent structures are commonly observed in fusion devices and are generally believed to be responsible for confinement degradation. Among their origin Drift-Alfven turbulence is one of the most commonly suggested. Drift-Alfven paradigm allows the existence of localized vortex-like structures observed also in various systems. Here we present the evidence of the presence of drift-Alfven vortices in the edge region of RFX-Mod RFP device, showing how these structures are responsible for electromagnetic turbulence at the edge and its intermittent nature.
The aim of this study is to analyze the stability of the Alfven eigenmodes (AE) in the Chinese First Quasi-axisymmetric Stellarator (CFQS). The AE stability is calculated using the code FAR3d that solves the reduced MHD equations to describe the linear evolution of the poloidal flux and the toroidal component of the vorticity in a full 3D system, coupled with equations of density and parallel velocity moment for the energetic particles (EP) species including the effect of the helical couplings and acoustic modes. The Landau damping and resonant destabilization effects are added in the model by a given closure relation. The simulation results indicate the destabilization of n = 1 to 4 AEs by EP during the slowing down process, particularly n = 1 and n = 2 toroidal AEs (TAE), n = 3 elliptical AE (EAE) and n = 4 non circular AE (NAE). If the resonance is caused by EPs with an energy above 17 keV (weakly thermalized EP), n = 2 EAEs and n = 3 NAEs are unstable. On the other hand, EPs with an energy below 17 keV (late thermalization stage) lead to the destabilization of n = 3 and n = 4 TAEs. The simulations for an off-axis NBI injection indicate the further destabilization of n = 2 to 4 AEs although the growth rate of the n = 1 AEs slightly decreases, so no clear optimization trend with respect to the NBI deposition region is identified. In addition, n = 2, 4 helical AE (HAE) are unstable above an EP b{eta} threshold. Also, if the thermal b{eta} of the simulation increases (higher thermal plasma density) the AE stability of the plasma improves. The simulations including the effect of the finite Larmor radius and electron-ion Landau damping show the stabilization of the n = 1 to 4 EAE/NAEs as well as a decrease of the growth rate and frequency of the n = 1 to 4 BAE/TAEs.
We investigate the low-frequency wave mode associated with heavy particles and its instability in a collisional complex plasma with drifting ions. The effect of the ion drift on the sound velocity of this mode is discussed. The general condition of the instability is derived for subthermal ion drifts, taking into account strong coupling of the particle component. As a general tendency, strong coupling effects reduce the sound velocity and facilitate the occurrence of the ion drift instability. A wide parameter range is considered from the weakly collisional to strongly collisional regimes for the ion and particle components. The chosen plasma parameters are representative to the PK-4 experiment, currently operational on board the International Space Station.
It is shown that an electron-neutrino beam, propagating in a background plasma, can be decomposed into orbital momentum (OAM) states, similar to the OAM photon states. Coupling between different OAM neutrino states, in the presence of a plasma vortex, is considered. We show that plasma vorticity can be transfered to the neutrino beam, which is relevant to the understanding of the neutrino sources in astrophysics. Observation of neutrino OAM states could eventually become possible.
We study theoretically the exchange of angular momentum between a photon beam and a plasma vortex, and demonstrate the possible excitation of photon angular momentum states in a plasma. This can be relevant to laboratory and space plasma diagnostics; radio astronomy self-calibration; and generating photon angular momentum beams. A static plasma perturbation with helical structure, and a rotating plasma vortex are studied in detail and a comparison between these two cases, and their relevance to the physical nature of photon OAM, is established.
Transfer of free energy from large to small velocity-space scales by phase mixing leads to Landau damping in a linear plasma. In a turbulent drift-kinetic plasma, this transfer is statistically nearly canceled by an inverse transfer from small to large velocity-space scales due to anti-phase-mixing modes excited by a stochastic form of plasma echo. Fluid moments (density, velocity, temperature) are thus approximately energetically isolated from the higher moments of the distribution function, so phase mixing is ineffective as a dissipation mechanism when the plasma collisionality is small.