Numerical study on the discharge characteristics and nonlinear behaviors of atmospheric pressure coaxial electrode dielectric barrier discharges

The discharge characteristics and temporal nonlinear behaviors of the atmospheric pressure coaxial electrode dielectric barrier discharges are studied by using a one-dimensional fluid model. It is shown that the discharge is always asymmetrical between the positive pulses and negative pulses. The gas gap severely affects this asymmetry. But it is hard to acquire a symmetrical discharge by changing the gas gap. This asymmetry is proportional to the asymmetric extent of electrode structure, namely the ratio of the outer electrode radius to the inner electrode radius. When this ratio is close to unity, a symmetrical discharge can be obtained. With the increase of frequency, the discharge can exhibit a series of nonlinear behaviors such as period-doubling bifurcation, secondary bifurcation and chaotic phenomena. In the period-doubling bifurcation sequence the period-n discharge becomes more and more unstable with the increase of n. The period-doubling bifurcation can also be obtained by altering the discharge gas gap. The mechanisms of two bifurcations are further studied.It is found that the residual quasineutral plasma from the previous discharges and corresponding electric field distribution can weaken the subsequent discharge, and leads to the occurrence of bifurcation.     

Linear analysis of plasma pressure-driven mode in reversed shear cylindrical tokamak plasmas

The linear behavior of the dominant unstable mode ($m=2$, $n=1$) and its high order harmonics ($m=2n$, $n\ge 2$) are numerically investigated in a reversed magnetic shear cylindrical plasma with two $q=2$ rational surfaces on the basis of the non-reduced magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) equations. The results show that with low beta (beta is defined as the ratio of plasma pressure to magnetic field pressure), the dominant mode is a classical double tearing mode (DTM). However, when the beta is sufficiently large, the mode is driven mainly by plasma pressure. In such a case, both the linear growth rate and mode structures are strongly affected by pressure, while almost independent of the resistivity. This means that the dominant mode undergoes a transition from DTM to pressure-driven mode with the increase of pressure, which is consistent with the experimental result in ASDEX Upgrade. The simulations also show that the distance between two rational surfaces has an important influence on the pressure needed in mode transition. The larger the distance between two rational surfaces, the larger the pressure for driving the mode transition is. Motivated by the phenomena that the high-$m$ modes may dominate over low-$m$ modes at small inter-resonance distance, the high-$m$ modes with different pressures and $q$ profiles are studied too.