Density gradient stabilization of electron temperature gradient driven turbulence in a spherical tokamak

In this Letter we report the first clear experimental observation of density gradient stabilization of electron temperature gradient driven turbulence in a fusion plasma. It is observed that longer wavelength modes, k(⊥)ρ(s) ? 10, are most stabilized by density gradient, and the stabilization is accompanied by about a factor of 2 decrease in the plasma effective thermal diffusivity.     

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基于Hasegawa-Wakatani湍流模型,数值模拟了托卡马克边缘等离子体中漂移波湍流和相关的反常粒子输运.从等离子体动量守恒方程出发导出了不采用常规的布辛涅斯克近似的带状流方程,论证了大振幅密度扰动和湍性粒子流对激发带状流的贡献可等效地对应于低阶负粘滞阻尼效果.数值模拟表明,大振幅密度扰动的非线性大大增强了带状流饱和振幅,从而有效抑制了湍性粒子输运.研究结果阐明了托卡马克边缘等离子体大振幅密度扰动的非线性对驱动等离子体旋转、动量输运和带状流的重要性.     

托卡马克边缘湍流中带状流的负粘滞阻尼

基于Hasegawa-Wakatani湍流模型,数值模拟了托卡马克边缘等离子体中漂移波湍流和相关的反常粒子输运。从等离子体动量守恒方程出发导出了不采用常规的布辛涅斯克近似的带状流方程,论证了大振幅密度扰动和湍性粒子流对激发带状流的贡献可等效地对应于低阶负粘滞阻尼效果。数值模拟表明,大振幅密度扰动的非线性大大增强了带状流饱和振幅,从而有效抑制了湍性粒子输运。研究结果阐明了托卡马克边缘等离子体大振幅密度扰动的非线性对驱动等离子体旋转、动量输运和带状流的重要性。     

在HT-7托卡马克上密度扫描实验中的边界湍流和输运

在HT-7托卡马克上密度扫描实验中使用一个快速扫描气动朗缪尔探针来研究边界湍流和输运。随着中心弦平均等离子体密度的增加，在等离子体边界观察到径向电场剪切增强，径向电场的增强能够解释边界输运的减小和全局粒子约束的改善。粒子约束时间的增加和垂直扩散系数的减小证明粒子输运降低了。在等离子体边界区域发现电离和辐射驱动湍流的特征，表明电离和辐射在湍流驱动过程中具有重要性。     

Nonaxisymmetric anisotropy of solar wind turbulence as a direct test for models of magnetohydrodynamic turbulence

Single point spacecraft observations of the turbulent solar wind flow exhibit a characteristic nonaxisymmetric anisotropy that depends sensitively on the perpendicular power spectral exponent. We use this nonaxisymmetric anisotropy as a function of wave vector direction to test models of MHD turbulence. Using Ulysses magnetic field observations in the fast, quiet polar solar wind we find that the Goldreich-Sridhar model of MHD turbulence is not consistent with the observed anisotropy, whereas the observations are well reproduced by the "slab+2D" model. The Goldreich-Sridhar model alone cannot account for the observations unless an additional component is also present.     

Transport in almost integrable models: perturbed Heisenberg chains

The heat conductivity kappa(T) of integrable models, like the one-dimensional spin-1/2 nearest-neighbor Heisenberg model, is infinite even at finite temperatures as a consequence of the conservation laws associated with integrability. Small perturbations lead to finite but large transport coefficients which we calculate perturbatively using exact diagonalization and moment expansions. We show that there are two different classes of perturbations. While an interchain coupling of strength J(perpendicular) leads to kappa(T) proportional to 1/J(perpendicular)2 as expected from simple golden-rule arguments, we obtain a much larger kappa(T) proportional to 1/J'4 for a weak next-nearest-neighbor interaction J'. This can be explained by a new approximate conservation law of the J-J' Heisenberg chain.     

Multifractal analysis of plasma turbulence in biasing experiments on Castor tokamak

Experiments as well as some stochastic models have shown that behaviour of the transport in the edge plasma in fusion devices should be considered as a multi-scale phenomenon. The multifractal statistics describes processes as a multiplicative cascade with a complex self-similarity. The multifractal analysis, which enables to clearly demonstrate the turbulent properties of plasma, was applied to fluctuating signals in the biasing experiments. The influence of the biasing parameters is shown. A comparison with other types of the analysis is illustrated, too. Presented at the Workshop “Electric Fields, Structures and Relaxation in Edge Plasmas”, Tarragona, Spain, July 3–4, 2005.     

Intermittency in stochastically perturbed turbulent models

Random dynamical models obtained as a perturbation of the GOY (Gledzer-Ohkitani-Yamada) shell model for three-dimensional turbulence are defined. Both static (time-independent) and dynamical scaling properties of the randomly perturbed model are studied. The random static-inviscid manifold, in contrast to the dynamical evolution, does not show intermittent scaling laws. This behavior is linked to the absence of large deviation in the random-map connecting fluctuations of velocities at different scales. The importance of inviscid conserved quantities on the intermittent statistics is discussed. Different random dynamical perturbations such that only energy is conserved in the inviscid and unforced limit are investigated. Intermittency is weakly affected by random perturbations.     

Comparing turbulence models for flow through a rigid glottal model

Flow through a rigid model of the human vocal tract featuring a divergent glottis was numerically modeled using the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes approach. A number of different turbulence models, available in a widely used commercial computational fluid dynamics code, were tested to determine their ability to capture various flow features recently observed in laboratory experiments and large eddy simulation studies. The study reveals that results from unsteady simulations employing the k-omega shear stress transport model were in much better agreement with previous measurements and predictions with regard to the ability to predict glottal jet skewing due to the Coanda effect and the intraglottal pressure distribution or related skin friction coefficient, than either steady or unsteady simulations using the Spalart-Allmaras model or any other two-equation turbulence model investigated in this study.     

Energy confinement and high-k turbulence on HT-7 tokamak

A CO₂ collective scattering system has been developed to measure medium and high-k density fluctuation on HT-7 tokamak. Energy confinement and high-k density fluctuation are studied in ohmic discharges. The saturation of confinement was observed at approximately . For kθ=23 cm⁻¹ turbulence, it is found that fluctuation levels have great increase for , and simultaneously a high frequency turbulence feature appear in the frequency spectra. For kθ=14 cm⁻¹ turbulence, it is observed that fluctuation levels have no changes in uncertainties and the spectra are similar at all discharges in this experiment.     

Cyclokinetic models and simulations for high-frequency turbulence in fusion plasmas

Gyrokinetics is widely applied in plasma physics. However, this framework is limited to weak turbulence levels and low drift-wave frequencies because high-frequency gyro-motion is reduced by the gyro-phase averaging. In order to test where gyrokinetics breaks down, Waltz and Zhao developed a new theory, called cyclokinetics [R. E. Waltz and Zhao Deng, Phys. Plasmas 20, 012507 (2013)]. Cyclokinetics dynamically follows the high-frequency ion gyro-motion which is nonlinearly coupled to the low-frequency drift-waves interrupting and suppressing gyro-averaging. Cyclokinetics is valid in the high-frequency (ion cyclotron frequency) regime or for high turbulence levels. The ratio of the cyclokinetic perturbed distribution function over equilibrium distribution function δf/F can approach 1.This work presents, for the first time, a numerical simulation of nonlinear cyclokinetic theory for ions, and describes the first attempt to completely solve the ion gyro-phase motion in a nonlinear turbulence system. Simulations are performed [Zhao Deng and R. E. Waltz, Phys. Plasmas 22(5), 056101 (2015)] in a local flux-tube geometry with the parallel motion and variation suppressed by using a newly developed code named rCYCLO, which is executed in parallel by using an implicit time-advanced Eulerian (or continuum) scheme [Zhao Deng and R. E. Waltz, Comp. Phys. Comm. 195, 23 (2015)]. A novel numerical treatment of the magnetic moment velocity space derivative operator guarantee saccurate conservation of incremental entropy.By comparing the more fundamental cyclokinetic simulations with the corresponding gyrokinetic simulations, the gyrokinetics breakdown condition is quantitatively tested. Gyrokinetic transport and turbulence level recover those of cyclokinetics at high relative ion cyclotron frequencies and low turbulence levels, as required. Cyclokinetic transport and turbulence level are found to be lower than those of gyrokinetics at high turbulence levels and low-Ω* values with stable ion cyclotron modes. The gyrokinetic approximation is found to break down when the density perturbation exceeds 20%, or when the ratio of nonlinear E×B frequency over ion cyclotron frequency exceeds 20%. This result indicates that the density perturbation of the Tokamak L-mode near-edge is not sufficiently large for breaking the gyro-phase averaging. For cyclokinetic simulations with sufficiently unstable ion cyclotron (IC) modes and sufficiently low Ω* ～10, the high-frequency component of the cyclokinetic transport can exceed that of the gyrokinetic transport. However, the low-frequency component of the cyclokinetic transport does not exceed that of the gyrokinetic transport. For higher and more physically relevant Ω* ?50 values and physically realistic IC driving rates, the low-frequency component of the cyclokinetic transport remains smaller than that of the gyrokinetic transport. In conclusion, the “L-mode near-edge short-fall” phenomenon, observed in some low-frequency gyrokinetic turbulence transport simulations, does not arise owing to the nonlinear coupling of high-frequency ion cyclotron motion to low-frequency drift motion.     

Comments on heuristic models for electron turbulence

Summary The difficulties imposed by the largely nonlinear character of the differential equations governing turbulence resulted in many proposals for empirical models. We shall prove that some often used models are incorrect as they are clearly not properly normalized.

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Riassunto Le difficoltà imposte dal carattere largamente non lineare delle equazioni differenziali che regolano la turbolenza hanno dato come risultato molte proposte per modelli empirici. Si prova che alcuni modelli spesso usati non sono corretti poiché non possono essere normalizzati appositamente.

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Резюме Трудности, накладываемые нелинейным характером дифференциальных уравнений, описывающих турбулентность, приводят к большому числу эмпирических моделей. Мы доказываем, что некоторые часто используемые модели не являются корректными, так как они не нормированы надлежащим образом.

     

Strong turbulence and nonlinear random waves in particle fluxes of hydrodynamic type

Nizhegorod State University. Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Radiofizika, Vol. 36, No. 7, pp. 687–707, July, 1993.     

Statistical models for spatial patterns of heavy particles in turbulence

The dynamics of heavy particles suspended in turbulent flows is of fundamental importance for a wide range of questions in astrophysics, atmospheric physics, oceanography, and technology. Laboratory experiments and numerical simulations have demonstrated that heavy particles respond in intricate ways to turbulent fluctuations of the carrying fluid: non-interacting particles may cluster together and form spatial patterns even though the fluid is incompressible, and the relative speeds of nearby particles can fluctuate strongly. Both phenomena depend sensitively on the parameters of the system. This parameter dependence is difficult to model from first principles since turbulence plays an essential role. Laboratory experiments are also very difficult, precisely since they must refer to a turbulent environment. But in recent years it has become clear that important aspects of the dynamics of heavy particles in turbulence can be understood in terms of statistical models where the turbulent fluctuations are approximated by Gaussian random functions with appropriate correlation functions. In this review, we summarise how such statistical-model calculations have led to a detailed understanding of the factors that determine heavy-particle dynamics in turbulence. We concentrate on spatial clustering of heavy particles in turbulence. This is an important question because spatial clustering affects the collision rate between the particles and thus the long-term fate of the system.