Numerical verification of bounce-harmonic resonances in neoclassical toroidal viscosity for tokamaks.

This Letter presents the first numerical verification for the bounce-harmonic (BH) resonance phenomena of the neoclassical transport in a tokamak perturbed by nonaxisymmetric magnetic fields. The BH resonances were predicted by analytic theories of neoclassical toroidal viscosity (NTV), as the parallel and perpendicular drift motions can be resonant and result in a great enhancement of the radial momentum transport. A new drift-kinetic δf guiding-center particle code, POCA, clearly verified that the perpendicular drift motions can reduce the transport by phase-mixing, but in the BH resonances the motions can form closed orbits and particles radially drift out fast.

Boltzmann equations for a binary one-dimensional ideal gas.

We consider a time-reversal invariant dynamical model of a binary ideal gas of N molecules in one spatial dimension. By making time-asymmetric assumptions about the behavior of the gas, we derive Boltzmann and anti-Boltzmann equations that describe the evolution of the single-molecule velocity distribution functions for an ensemble of such systems. We show that for a special class of initial states of the ensemble one can obtain an exact expression for the N-molecule velocity distribution function, and we use this expression to rigorously prove that the time-asymmetric assumptions needed to derive the Boltzmann and anti-Boltzmann equations hold in the limit of large N.

Magnetic-surface quality in nonaxisymmetric plasma equilibria.

The confinement of plasmas by magnetic fields with nonaxisymmetric shaping can be degraded or destroyed by the breakup of the magnetic surfaces through effects that are intrinsic to the shaping. An efficient perturbation method of determining this drive for islands was developed and applied to stellarator equilibria.

Nonambipolar transport by trapped particles in tokamaks.

Small nonaxisymmetric perturbations of the magnetic field can greatly change the performance of tokamaks through nonambipolar transport. A number of theories have been developed, but the predictions were not consistent with experimental observations in tokamaks. This Letter provides a resolution, with a generalized analytic treatment of the nonambipolar transport.

Control of asymmetric magnetic perturbations in tokamaks.

The sensitivity of tokamak plasmas to very small deviations from the axisymmetry of the magnetic field |deltaB/B| approximately 10{-4} is well known. What was not understood until very recently is the importance of the perturbation to the plasma equilibrium in assessing the effects of externally produced asymmetries in the magnetic field, even far from a stability limit. DIII-D and NSTX experiments find that when the deleterious effects of asymmetries are mitigated, the external asymmetric field was often made stronger and had an increased interaction with the magnetic field of the unperturbed equilibrium.