The impact of energetic particles and rotation on tokamak plasmas

Abstract

We discuss two contributions that elucidate the impact of energetic particles and rotation on tokamak plasmas: FLOW-M (M. J. Hole and G. Dennis, Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion 51, 035014, 2009), a generalisation of the ideal MHD flow code FLOW to multiple quasi-neutral fluids, and recent work on steady poloidal and toroidal bulk flows in tokamak plasmas [K. G. McClements and M.J. Hole, Phys. Plasmas 17, 082509 (2010)]. Hole and Dennis have generalized ideal MHD to consider multiple quasi-neutral fluids, each in thermal equilibrium and each thermally insulated from each other such that no population mixing occurs. Kinetically, such a model may be able to approximate the ion or electron distribution function in regions of velocity phase space with a large number of particles, at the expense of more weakly populated phase space, which may have uncharacteristically high temperature and hence pressure. As magnetic equilibrium effects increase with the increase in pressure, this work constitutes an upper limit to the effect of energetic particles. McClements and Hole have examined the effects of poloidal and toroidal flows on tokamak plasma equilibria in the MHD limit. Transonic poloidal flows, of the order of the sound speed multiplied by the ratio of poloidal magnetic field to total field B θ/B, can cause the (normally elliptic) Grad-Shafranov (G-S) equation to become hyperbolic in part of the solution domain. The discontinuity in variables produced by this transition indicates a breakdown in the validity of the MHD model in tokamak plasmas. It is pointed out that the range of poloidal flows for which the G-S equation is hyperbolic increases with plasma beta and Bθ/B, thereby complicating the problem of determining spherical tokamak plasma equilibria with transonic poloidal flows. When the assumption of isentropic flux surfaces is replaced with the more tokamak-relevant one of isothermal flux surfaces, a simple expression can be obtained for the variation of density on a flux surface when poloidal and toroidal flows are simultaneously present. Combined with Thomson scattering measurements of density and temperature, this expression could be used to infer information on poloidal and toroidal flows on the high field side of a tokamak plasma, where direct measurements of flows are not generally possible.