Nonlinear excitation of subcritical fast ion-driven modes

DOI IR HANDLE Web Site Web Site View 2 Remaining Hide 3 Citations 34 References

Bibliographic Information

Other Title
  • 亜臨界高速イオン励起モードの非線形励起, 亜臨界高速イオン励起モードの非線形励起

Search this article

Abstract

In collisionless plasma, it is known that linearly stable modes can be destabilized (subcritically) by the presence of structures in phase-space. The growth of such structures is a nonlinear, kinetic mechanism, which provides a channel for free-energy extraction, different from conventional inverse Landau damping. However, such nonlinear growth requires the presence of a seed structure with a relatively large threshold in amplitude. We demonstrate that, in the presence of another, linearly unstable (supercritical) mode, wave–wave coupling can provide a seed, which can lead to subcritical instability by either one of two mechanisms. Both mechanisms hinge on a collaboration between fluid nonlinearity and kinetic nonlinearity. If collisional velocity diffusion is low enough, the seed provided by the supercritical mode overcomes the threshold for nonlinear growth of phase-space structure. Then, the supercritical mode triggers the conventional subcritical instability. If collisional velocity diffusion is too large, the seed is significantly below the threshold, but can still grow by a sustained collaboration between fluid and kinetic nonlinearities. Both of these subcritical instabilities can be triggered, even when the frequency of the supercritical mode is rapidly sweeping. These results were obtained by modeling the subcritical mode kinetically, and the impact of the supercritical mode by simple wave–wave coupling equations. This model is applied to bursty onset of geodesic acoustic modes in an LHD experiment. The model recovers several key features such as relative amplitude, timescales, and phase relations. It suggests that the strongest bursts are subcritical instabilities, with sustained collaboration between fluid and kinetic nonlinearities.

Journal

  • Nuclear Fusion

    Nuclear Fusion 56 (5), 056009-, 2016-04-13

    IOP Publishing

Citations (3)*help

See more

References(34)*help

See more

Related Projects

See more

Report a problem

Back to top