Turbulence-driven heavy ion transport in hot magnetized plasma is investigated by means of the gyrokinetic theory and simulations. A finite heavy ion parallel compressibility pinch (Γ_{s,∥}) is found ...in the gyrokinetic framework, in contrast to the conventional understanding that Γ_{s,∥} is negligible. A perturbation theory clarifies the turbulence frequency dependence of Γ_{s,∥}, resolving the discrepancy with experimental observations. It is also predicted by a nonlocal approach of the parallel advection term that Γ_{s,∥} is strongly anisotropic on a magnetic surface. The parameter dependence shows that decreasing the heavy ion mass m_{s} strongly enhances Γ_{s,∥} through kinetic effects, leading to a deviation from the 1/m_{s} scaling. Moreover, the pinch direction can be reversed in nonlinear trapped electron mode turbulence through the inverse cascade.
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A theory for describing collisionless long-time behavior of zonal flows in helical systems is presented and its validity is verified by gyrokinetic-Vlasov simulation. It is shown that, under the ...influence of particles trapped in helical ripples, the response of zonal flows to a given source becomes weaker for lower radial wave numbers and deeper helical ripples while a high-level zonal-flow response, which is not affected by helical-ripple-trapped particles, can be maintained for a longer time by reducing their bounce-averaged radial drift velocity. This implies a possibility that helical configurations optimized for reducing neoclassical ripple transport can simultaneously enhance zonal flows which lower anomalous transport.
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Gyrokinetic Vlasov simulations of the ion temperature gradient turbulence are performed in order to investigate effects of helical magnetic configurations on turbulent transport and zonal flows. The ...obtained results confirm the theoretical prediction that helical configurations optimized for reducing neoclassical ripple transport can simultaneously reduce the turbulent transport with enhancing zonal-flow generation. Stationary zonal-flow structures accompanied with transport reduction are clearly identified by the simulation for the neoclassically optimized helical geometry. The generation of the stationary zonal flow explains a physical mechanism for causing the confinement improvement observed in the inward-shifted plasma in the Large Helical Device O. Motojima, Nucl. Fusion 43, 1674 (2003).
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We have implemented the Sugama collision operator in the gyrokinetic Vlasov simulation code, GKV, with an implicit time-integration scheme. The new method is versatile and independent of the details ...of the linearized collision operator, by means of an operator splitting, an implicit time integrator, and an iterative Krylov subspace solver. Numerical tests demonstrate stable computation over the time step size restricted by the collision term. An efficient implementation for parallel computation on distributed memory systems is realized by using the data transpose communication, which makes the iterative solver free from inter-node communications during iteration. Consequently, the present approach achieves enhancement of computational efficiency and reduction of computational time to solution simultaneously, and significantly accelerates the total performance of the application.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Multi-scale plasma turbulence including electron and ion temperature gradient (ETG/ITG) modes has been investigated by means of electromagnetic gyrokinetic simulations. Triad transfer analyses on ...nonlinear mode coupling reveal cross-scale interactions between electron and ion scales. One of the interactions is suppression of electron-scale turbulence by ion-scale turbulence, where ITG-driven short-wavelength eddies act like shear flows and suppress ETG turbulence. Another cross-scale interaction is enhancement of ion-scale turbulence in the presence of electron-scale turbulence. This is caused via short-wavelength zonal flows, which are created by the response of passing kinetic electrons in ITG, suppress ITG by their shearing, and are damped by ETG turbulence. In both cases, sub-ion-scale structures between electron and ion scales play important roles in the cross-scale interactions.
Gyrokinetic simulations of electromagnetic turbulence in magnetically confined torus plasmas including tokamak and heliotron/stellarator are reviewed. Numerical simulation of turbulence in finite ...beta plasmas is an important task for predicting the performance of fusion reactors and a great challenge in computational science due to multiple spatio-temporal scales related to electromagnetic ion and electron dynamics. The simulation becomes further challenging in non-axisymmetric plasmas. In finite beta plasmas, magnetic perturbation appears and influences some key mechanisms of turbulent transport, which include linear instability and zonal flow production. Linear analysis shows that the ion-temperature gradient (ITG) instability, which is essentially an electrostatic instability, is unstable at low beta and its growth rate is reduced by magnetic field line bending at finite beta. On the other hand, the kinetic ballooning mode (KBM), which is an electromagnetic instability, is destabilized at high beta. In addition, trapped electron modes (TEMs), electron temperature gradient (ETG) modes, and micro-tearing modes (MTMs) can be destabilized. These instabilities are classified into two categories: ballooning parity and tearing parity modes. These parities are mixed by nonlinear interactions, so that, for instance, the ITG mode excites tearing parity modes. In the nonlinear evolution, the zonal flow shear acts to regulate the ITG driven turbulence at low beta. On the other hand, at finite beta, interplay between the turbulence and zonal flows becomes complicated because the production of zonal flow is influenced by the finite beta effects. When the zonal flows are too weak, turbulence continues to grow beyond a physically relevant level of saturation in finite-beta tokamaks. Nonlinear mode coupling to stable modes can play a role in the saturation of finite beta ITG mode and KBM. Since there is a quadratic conserved quantity, evaluating nonlinear transfer of the conserved quantity from unstable modes to stable modes is useful for understanding the saturation mechanism of turbulence.
Dirac fermion optics exploits the refraction of chiral fermions across optics-inspired Klein-tunneling barriers defined by high-transparency p-n junctions. We consider the corner reflector (CR) ...geometry introduced in optics or radars. We fabricate Dirac fermion CRs using bottom-gate-defined barriers in hBN-encapsulated graphene. By suppressing transmission upon multiple internal reflections, CRs are sensitive to minute phonon scattering rates. Here we report on doping-independent CR transmission in quantitative agreement with a simple scattering model including thermal phonon scattering. As a signature of CRs, we observe Fabry-Pérot oscillations at low temperature, consistent with single-path reflections. Finally, we demonstrate high-frequency operation which promotes CRs as fast phonon detectors. Our work establishes the relevance of Dirac fermion optics in graphene and opens a route for its implementation in topological Dirac matter.
We have investigated drift-wave instability and nonlinear turbulent transport in two configurations with different magnetic field structures by means of electromagnetic gyrokinetic simulations. Here, ...one is the neoclassically optimized Large Helical Device (LHD) plasma and the other is the Heliotron J (HJ) plasma. First, we show that the validation against the turbulent transport in the LHD plasma is successful, and that the neoclassically optimized configuration has smaller turbulent transport. Second, the neoclassical optimization through an enhanced toroidal mirror ratio, which is a capability of non-axisymmetric plasma, is found to improve the turbulent transport in the HJ plasma, which is qualitatively consistent with the observation in the HJ. Hence, the neoclassical optimization reduces the turbulent transport in both the LHD and HJ plasmas. Third, as a trial in evaluating the performance of a helical system designed with different concepts for stability, we compared turbulent transport in these plasmas and found that both the mixing-length-estimated diffusion and nonlinear turbulent transport of the HJ plasma are smaller than those of the LHD plasma in gyro-Bohm units. The significant difference is stronger zonal flows in the HJ plasma than in the LHD plasma.
Turbulent transport in high-beta toroidal plasmas is investigated by means of an electromagnetic gyrokinetic model and a newly developed electromagnetic hybrid model consisting of the gyrokinetic ...equation for ions and drift-Landau-fluid equations for electrons. Full gyrokinetic simulation results for Cyclone base case tokamak and for Large Helical Device (LHD) plasmas are quickly and accurately reproduced by the hybrid simulation. In the kinetic ballooning mode (KBM)-driven turbulence the ion heat and particle fluxes are mainly caused by electrostatic perturbation, and the contribution of magnetic perturbation is small and negative. The electron heat flux is caused by both electrostatic and magnetic perturbations. The numerical solutions satisfy the entropy balance equation, and the entropy is transferred from ions to electrons through electrostatic and magnetic perturbations. An analysis based on the entropy balance equation shows that the zonal structure is produced by magnetic nonlinearity corresponding to the Maxwell stress in the fluid limit but is weakened by the electrostatic one related to the Reynolds stress. A linear analysis on the standard configuration of LHD plasmas shows the suppression of the ion temperature gradient mode by finite-beta effects and the destabilization of KBM at high beta.
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