Theoretical astrophysics and plasma physics at RPC

Abstract:

Electromagnetic (EM) instabilities and turbulence driven by the electron-temperature gradient (ETG) are considered in a local slab model of a tokamak-like plasma. Derived in a low-beta asymptotic limit of gyrokinetics, the model describes perturbations at scales both larger and smaller than the electron inertial length de, but below the ion Larmor scale ρi, capturing both electrostatic and EM regimes of turbulence. The well-known electrostatic instabilities – slab and curvature-mediated ETG – are recovered, and a new instability is found in the EM regime, called the thermo-Alfvénic instability (TAI). It exists in both a slab version (sTAI, destabilising kinetic Alfvén waves) and a curvature-mediated version (cTAI), which is a cousin of the (electron-scale) kinetic ballooning mode. The cTAI turns out to be dominant at the largest scales covered by the model (greater than de but smaller than ρi), its physical mechanism hinging on the fast equalisation of the total temperature along perturbed magnetic field lines (in contrast to kinetic ballooning mode, which is pressure balanced). A turbulent cascade theory is then constructed, with two energy-injection scales: de, where the drivers are slab ETG and sTAI, and a larger (parallel system size dependent) scale, where the driver is cTAI. The latter dominates the turbulent transport if the temperature gradient is greater than a certain critical value, which scales inversely with the electron beta. The resulting heat flux scales more steeply with the temperature gradient than that due to electrostatic ETG turbulence, giving rise to stiffer transport. This can be viewed as a physical argument in favour of near-marginal steady-state in electron-transport-controlled plasmas (e.g. the pedestal). While the model is simplistic, the new physics that is revealed by it should be of interest to those attempting to model the effect of EM turbulence in tokamak-relevant configurations with high beta and large ETGs.