Global electromagnetic gyrokinetic simulations of internal transport barriers in reversed-shear tokamaks
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2024
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| _version_ | 1866909426825297920 |
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| author | Di Giannatale, Giovanni Volčokas, Arnas Ball, Justin Bottino, Alberto Brunner, Stephan Griveaux, Philippe Murugappan, Moahan Hayward-Schneider, Thomas Villard, Laurent |
| author_facet | Di Giannatale, Giovanni Volčokas, Arnas Ball, Justin Bottino, Alberto Brunner, Stephan Griveaux, Philippe Murugappan, Moahan Hayward-Schneider, Thomas Villard, Laurent |
| contents | This work aims at improving our understanding of the conditions enabling the development of an Internal transport barriers (ITB), using a more comprehensive physical model, including low-$β$ electromagnetic flux-driven simulations. Our key findings are that electron dynamics is crucial for ITB formation even in an ITG scenario and that having $q_{\text{min}}$ close to a lowest order rational value (2 in our simulations) to allow for eddies self-interaction is a necessary ingredient. Electron dynamics has two critical effects. First, it leads to a structure formation characterized by strong zonal flows shearing rate, reduction of turbulence and profile corrugation. Second, it leads to zonal current sheets that result in a broadening of the minimum-q region, qualitatively consistent with the flux-tube simulations of Volčokas et al. [1]. Flux-driven simulations performed with $q_{\text{min}}=2$ reveal the development of the transport barrier in the ion channel, forming at inner and outer radial positions with respect to the $q_{\text{min}}$ position. The ITB formation in flux-driven setup is not recovered if $q_{\text{min}} = 2.03$. Additionally, a simulation at higher $ρ^*$ indicates that the extent of the flattened region of the q-profile due to turbulent self-interaction does not change proportionally to $ρ^*$ or to $ρ_i$, but somewhere in between. On the other hand, the input power required to achieve similar on-axis temperatures appears to exhibit almost GyroBohm scaling (for the two considered $ρ^*$ values). Furthermore, considering an initial q-profile with $q_{\text{min}} = 2.01$, flux-driven simulations show that partial self-interaction can evolve to complete self-interaction. This occurs due to turbulent-driven zonal currents that lower and flatten the q-profile down to $q_{\text{min}} = 2.0$, in line with what is reported in Volčokas et al.[1]. |
| format | Preprint |
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arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2412_10027 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2024 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Global electromagnetic gyrokinetic simulations of internal transport barriers in reversed-shear tokamaks Di Giannatale, Giovanni Volčokas, Arnas Ball, Justin Bottino, Alberto Brunner, Stephan Griveaux, Philippe Murugappan, Moahan Hayward-Schneider, Thomas Villard, Laurent Plasma Physics This work aims at improving our understanding of the conditions enabling the development of an Internal transport barriers (ITB), using a more comprehensive physical model, including low-$β$ electromagnetic flux-driven simulations. Our key findings are that electron dynamics is crucial for ITB formation even in an ITG scenario and that having $q_{\text{min}}$ close to a lowest order rational value (2 in our simulations) to allow for eddies self-interaction is a necessary ingredient. Electron dynamics has two critical effects. First, it leads to a structure formation characterized by strong zonal flows shearing rate, reduction of turbulence and profile corrugation. Second, it leads to zonal current sheets that result in a broadening of the minimum-q region, qualitatively consistent with the flux-tube simulations of Volčokas et al. [1]. Flux-driven simulations performed with $q_{\text{min}}=2$ reveal the development of the transport barrier in the ion channel, forming at inner and outer radial positions with respect to the $q_{\text{min}}$ position. The ITB formation in flux-driven setup is not recovered if $q_{\text{min}} = 2.03$. Additionally, a simulation at higher $ρ^*$ indicates that the extent of the flattened region of the q-profile due to turbulent self-interaction does not change proportionally to $ρ^*$ or to $ρ_i$, but somewhere in between. On the other hand, the input power required to achieve similar on-axis temperatures appears to exhibit almost GyroBohm scaling (for the two considered $ρ^*$ values). Furthermore, considering an initial q-profile with $q_{\text{min}} = 2.01$, flux-driven simulations show that partial self-interaction can evolve to complete self-interaction. This occurs due to turbulent-driven zonal currents that lower and flatten the q-profile down to $q_{\text{min}} = 2.0$, in line with what is reported in Volčokas et al.[1]. |
| title | Global electromagnetic gyrokinetic simulations of internal transport barriers in reversed-shear tokamaks |
| topic | Plasma Physics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.10027 |