Collisionless Drift Waves Ranging from Current‐Driven,Shear‐Modified,and Electron‐Temperature‐Gradient Modes

The specific history of collisionless drift waves is marked by focusing upon current‐driven, shear‐modified, and electron‐temperature‐gradient modes. Studies of current‐driven collisionless drift waves started in 1977 using the Innsbruck Q machine and was continued over 30 years until 2009 with topics such as plasma heating by drift waves in fusion‐oriented confinement and space/astrophysical plasmas. Superposition of perpendicular flow velocity shear on parallel shear intensively modifies the drift wave characteristics through the variation of its azimuthal structure, where the parallel‐shear driven instability is suppressed for strong perpendicular shears, while hybrid‐ion velocity shear cause unexpected stabilization of the parallel‐shear‐modified drift wave. An electron temperature gradient can be formed easily by control of thermionic electron superimposed on ECR plasma, and is found to excite low‐frequency fluctuation in the range of drift waves (© 2011 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)