Physics of Plasmas Devoted to original contributions to and reviews of the physics of plasmas, including magnetofluid mechanics, kinetic theory and statistical mechanics of fully and partially ionized gases.

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Physics of Fluids B: Plasma Physics -- December 1989 -- Volume 1, Issue 12 pp. 2404-2413

Stability of the global Alfvén eigenmode in the presence of fusion alpha particles in an ignited tokamak plasma

G. Y. Fu and J. W. Van Dam

Institute for Fusion Studies, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712

(Received 22 May 1989; accepted 3 August 1989)

The stability of global Alfvén eigenmodes is investigated in the presence of super-Alfvénic energetic particles, such as fusion-product alpha particles in an ignited deuterium–tritium tokamak plasma. Alpha particles tend to destabilize these modes when > _A, where _A is the shear-Alfvén modal frequency and _* is the alpha particle diamagnetic drift frequency. This destabilization due to alpha particles is found to be significantly enhanced when the alpha particles are modeled with a slowing-down distribution function rather than with a Maxwellian distribution. However, previously neglected electron damping due to the magnetic curvature drift is found to be comparable in magnitude to the destabilizing alpha particle term. Furthermore, the effects of toroidicity are also found to be stabilizing, since the intrinsic toroidicity induces poloidal mode coupling, which enhances the parallel electron damping from the sideband shear-Alfvén Landau resonance. In particular, for typical ignition tokamak parameters, global Alfvén eigenmodes are found to be completely stabilized by either the electron damping that enters through the magnetic curvature drift or the damping introduced by finite toroidicity. Physics of Fluids B: Plasma Physics is copyrighted by The American Institute of Physics.

DOI: 10.1063/1.859175
PACS: 52.55.Pi, 52.35.Bj, 52.55.Fa        Additional Information

Citing Articles

1. Shear Alfvén mode resonances in nonaxisymmetric toroidal low-pressure plasmas. I. Mode equations in arbitrary geometry
   A. Salat et al., Phys. Plasmas 8, 1200 (2001)
2. Survey of magnetohydrodynamic instabilities in the advanced stellarator Wendelstein 7-AS
   A. Weller et al., Phys. Plasmas 8, 931 (2001)
3. New Alfvén Continuum Gaps and Global Modes Induced by Toroidal Flow
   B. van der Holst et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 2865 (2000)
4. Calculation of resistive magnetohydrodynamic spectra in tokamaks
   B. van der Holst et al., Phys. Plasmas 6, 1554 (1999)
5. Observation of Toroidicity-Induced Alfvén Eigenmodes in Ohmically Heated Plasmas by Drift Wave Excitation
   M. Maraschek et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 79 4186 (1997) [SPIN]