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NASA NTRS1985

Coupled low-energy - ring current plasma diffusion in the Jovian magnetosphere

The outwardly diffusing Iogenic plasma and the simultaneously inwardly diffusing ring current plasma in the Jovian magnetosphere are described using a coupled diffusion model which incorporates the effects of the pressure gradient of the ring current into the cross-L diffusion coefficient. The coupled diffusion coefficient is derived by calculating the total energy available to drive the diffusion process. The condition is imposed that the diffusion coefficient takes on a local minimum value at some point in the region L = 7-8, at which point the gradient of the Io plasma density is specified as ramp value given by Siscoe et al. (1981). The hypothesis that the pressure gradient of the ring current causes the diminution of radial plasma transport is tested, and solution profiles for the Iogenic and ring current plasma densities are obtained which imply that the Io plasma ramp is caused by a high-density, low-energy component of the ring current hitherto unobserved directly.

Summers, D.↗

DOE OSTI2025

A scaling law of the neutral penetration length and Balmer- α wing shape in high-temperature plasmas

Hydrogen atoms penetrating deep inside high-temperature magnetically confined plasmas by repetitive charge-exchange collisions result in a particle source of the plasma, which affects the plasma transport significantly. In this paper, we present an approximate solution of the fluid equations for neutral transport and an analytical representation of the neutral penetration length, in a simplified plasma geometry. This analysis predicts a power-law decay in the Balmer-α line wings which reflects the velocity distribution of the neutral atoms, with the power-law exponent analytically represented as well. These scaling laws are compared with a simple Monte–Carlo simulation and spectroscopic observations of Large Helical Device plasmas. Since the Balmer-α line wings are experimentally accessible, our formulation opens the possibility to quickly estimate the neutral penetration length from spectroscopic observations.

neutral opacity↗

NASA NTRS1995

Magnetospheric space plasma investigations

Topics and investigations covering this period of this semiannual report period (August 1994 - January 1995) are as follows: (1) Generalized SemiKinetic (GSK) modeling of the synergistic interaction of transverse heating of ionospheric ions and magnetospheric plasma-driven electric potentials on the auroral plasma transport. Also, presentations of GSK modeling of auroral electron precipitation effects on ionospheric plasma outflows, of ExB effects on such outflow, and on warm plasma thermalization and other effects during refilling with pre-existing warm plasmas; (2) Referees' reports received on the statistical study of the latitudinal distributions of core plasmas along the L = 4.6 field line using DE-1/RIMS data. Other work is concerned in the same field, field-aligned flows and trapped ion distributions; and (3) A short study has been carried out on heating processes in low density flux tubes in the outer plasmasphere. The purpose was to determine whether the high ion temperatures observed in these flux tubes were due to heat sources operating through the thermal electrons or directly to the ions. Other investigations center along the same area of plasmasphere-ionosphere coupling. The empirical techniques and model, the listing of hardware calibrated, and/or tested, and a description of notable meetings attended is included in this report, along with a list of all present publication in submission or accepted and those reference papers that have resulted from this work thus far.

Comfort, Richard H.↗

NASA NTRS2004

Conductance Effects on Inner Magnetospheric Plasma Morphology: Model Comparisons with IMAGE EUV, MENA, and HENA Data

Modeling results of the inner magnetosphere showing the influence of the ionospheric conductance on the inner magnetospheric electric fields during the April 17, 2002 magnetic storm are presented. Kinetic plasma transport code results are analyzed in combination with observations of the inner magnetospheric plasma populations, in particular those from the IMAGE satellite. Qualitative and quantitative comparisons are made with the observations from EW, MENA, and HENA, covering the entire energy range simulated by the model (0 to 300 keV). The electric field description, and in particular the ionospheric conductance, is the only variable between the simulations. Results from the data-model comparisons are discussed, detailing the strengths and weaknesses of each conductance choice for each energy channel.

Liemohn, M.↗

DOE OSTI2025

Global Gyrokinetic Simulations of Isotope Effects under Ambipolar Electric Fields and Advances Toward Whole-Volume Modeling

We review global gyrokinetic simulation studies on plasma transport in the Large Helical Device using XGC-S. XGC-S is an extended version of X-point Gyrokinetic Code for stellarators and has been progressively verified throughout the code development process. Verification tests of neoclassical transport successfully demonstrate the generation of an ambipolar electric field due to ripple-trapped particles. We perform quasi-linear analyses of the ion temperature gradient mode under the influence of the ambipolar electric field. The results reveal that the ambipolar electric field and the heavy hydrogen component in mixed isotope plasmas can lead to the favorable isotope effect observed in recent deuterium experiments. We also present recent efforts in code development toward whole-volume simulations, including the helical divertor region. A mesh generation scheme based on field-line tracing and the construction of curved surfaces perpendicular to the magnetic field would be promising for global field calculations in the whole-volume simulations.

Basic Plasma Phenomena and Gas Discharges↗

NASA NTRS1988

Preshock region acceleration of implanted cometary H(+) and O(+)

A self-consistent, three-fluid model of plasma transport and implanted ion acceleration in the unshocked solar wind is presented. The solar wind plasma is depleted by charge exchange with the expanding cometary exosphere, while implanted protons and heavy ions are produced by photoionization and charge transfer and lost by charge exchange. A generalized transport equation describing convection, adiabatic and diffusive velocity change, and the appropriate production terms is used to describe the evolution of the two cometary ion components, while the moments of the Boltzmann equation are used to calculate the solar wind density and pressure. The flow velocity is obtained self-consistently by combining the conservation equations of the three ion species. The results imply that second-order Fermi acceleration can explain the implanted spectra observed in the unshocked solar wind. Comparison of measured and calculated distribution indicates that spatial diffusion of implanted ions probably plays an important role in forming the energetic particle environment in the shock vicinity.

Gombosi, Tamas I.↗

NASA NTRS1978

Ion temperature troughs and interhemispheric transport observed in the equatorial ionosphere

Ion temperature and ion drift velocity data from Atmosphere Explorer D have verified the existence of interhemispheric plasma transport and ion temperature troughs in the topside equatorial ionosphere. The data were taken during solar minimum conditions at night where the exospheric temperature was typically 700 K and the O(+)-H(+) transition height was 520 km. Large field-aligned ion velocities were observed above about 700 km, where the H(+)/O(+) number density ratio was about 3. Model calculations have shown that the ion temperature decrease is produced by quasi-adiabatic expansion of the plasma, but the expansion cooling mechanism is less efficient at solar minimum than at solar maximum owing to the lower O(+)-H(+) transition height. Ion temperature troughs greater than 400 K were not observed even when the field-aligned ion velocity was greater than 700 m/s. Most of the expansion occurs below the transition height, and during sunspot minimum, thermal coupling to the neutral atmosphere is much more effective in quenching the cooling which the field-aligned transport tends to produce.

Heelis, R. A.↗

DOE OSTI2026

Molecular dynamics simulation of hydrodynamic transport coefficients in plasmas

Molecular dynamics simulations are used to calculate transport coefficients in a two-component plasma interacting through a repulsive Coulomb potential. The thermal conductivity, electrical conductivity, electrothermal coefficient, thermoelectric coefficient, and shear viscosity are computed using the Green–Kubo formalism over a broad range of Coulomb coupling strength, 0.01 ≤ Γ ≤ 140. Emphasis is placed on testing standard results of the Chapman–Enskog solution in the weakly coupled regime (Γ ≪ 1) using these first-principles simulations. As expected, the results show good agreement for Γ ≲ 0.1. However, this agreement is only possible if careful attention is paid to the definitions of linear constitutive relations in each of the theoretical models, a point that is often overlooked. For example, the standard Green–Kubo expression for thermal conductivity is a linear combination of thermal conductivity, electrothermal, and thermoelectric coefficients computed in the Chapman–Enskog formalism. Meaningful results for electrical conductivity are obtained over the full range of coupling strengths explored, but it is shown that potential and virial components of the other transport coefficients diverge in the strongly coupled regime (Γ ≫ 1). In this regime, only the kinetic components of the transport coefficients are meaningful for a classical plasma.

Electrical conductivity↗

NASA NTRS2017

Saturn's Rings and Associated Ring Plasma Cavity: Evidence for Slow Ring Erosion

We re-examine the radio and plasma wave observations obtained during the Cassini Saturn orbit insertion period, as the spacecraft flew over the northern ring surface into a radial distance of 1.3 Rs (over the C-ring). Voyager era studies suggest the rings are a source of micro-meteoroid generated plasma and dust, with theorized peak impact-created plasma outflows over the densest portion of the rings (central B-ring). In sharp contrast, the Cassini Radio and Plasma Wave System (RPWS) observations identify the presence of a ring-plasma cavity located in the central portion of the B-ring, with little evidence of impact-related plasma. While previous Voyager era studies have predicted unstable ion orbits over the C- ring, leading to field-aligned plasma transport to Saturns ionosphere, the Cassini RPWS observations do not reveal evidence for such instability-created plasma fountains. Given the passive ring loss processes observed by Cassini, we find that the ring lifetimes should extend >10(exp 9) years, and that there is limited evidence for prompt destruction (loss in <100 Myrs).

Plasma↗

DOE OSTI2026

An overview of 3D field optimization for control of transport and edge instabilities on KSTAR

An international team from several laboratories and universities has made key advances over the last few years in the control of plasma transport and edge instabilities with applied 3D fields in the KSTAR tokamak to optimize long pulse operation scenarios. This overview begins with the optimization of both core and edge resonant magnetic perturbations (RMP) to improve fast ion confinement to avoid excessive limiter heat loads due to fast ion losses and successful modeling of the experimental results. Integrated and advanced plasma control techniques with machine learning (ML) and adaptive control were then used to optimize the 3D field spectrum in real-time to control edge localized modes (ELMs) while avoiding core locked modes that could disrupt the plasma. Accelerating the offline model of 3D fields with a surrogate ML model can optimize ELM suppression in the edge while limiting the impact of the applied RMP fields deeper in the plasma core in real-time. In addition, the impact of the 3D fields on the divertor heat load has been modeled and compared with experimental measurements. An analysis of a multi-machine database including KSTAR has been performed to better understand the metrics for the observed RMP thresholds for ELM suppression and the resulting plasma performance. Predictive modeling of the operational space for ELM suppression and density pumpout due to RMP has shown the importance of magnetic islands in the plasma edge and their impact on plasma turbulence. This research has culminated in the development of successful long pulse operational scenarios on KSTAR while attempting to overcome challenges of the new tungsten divertor.

3D fields↗

DOE OSTI2021

Bolometer tomography on Wendelstein 7-X for study of radiation asymmetry

The algorithm for bolometer tomography at Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) has been recently improved using a novel regularization functional, based on relative gradient smoothing (RGS) of the sought radiation profile. It has been validated using radiation patterns provided by 3D modeling under real plasma conditions as phantoms and then applied to bolometer measurements performed during the first divertor operation phase of W7-X. The following results are presented: 1) edge-localized 2D radiation patterns with clearly resolved magnetic island radiation structures, 2) an up-down asymmetry in the impurity radiation that is not captured by the 3D edge plasma transport modeling, 3) reversal of the asymmetry with reversed magnetic field direction. Further analysis reveals a poloidal variation of the emissivity in the outer confined plasma region with a field-direction dependent asymmetry, also supported by the soft X-ray measurements. This asymmetry is considered to be related to asymmetric impurity distributions, driven by the pronounced ion-impurity friction force at the plasma edge where the collisionality of the W7-X plasma is sufficiently high to develop impurity asymmetry as predicted by neoclassical theory of parallel impurity transport.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

NASA NTRS1990

Current collection by a long conducting cylinder in a flowing magnetized plasma

The numerical techniques, the definitions, and the normalizations used in the simulations of plasma flow past a long conducting cylinder with a magnetic field along the cylinder axis are described. The effect of cross-field plasma transport on the current collection without any contribution to the current from the field-aligned motion of the plasma particles is highlighted. The electric fields in the structure create a two-cell circulation of the electrons near the cylinder. The cell in the wake region has negative potentials. A fan-shaped circulation cell forms around the cylinder and in this cell the potential is generally positive. The geometry and the size of this positive cell affect the current collection. The potential structure around the cylinder is examined, along with its effect on the current collection and its oscillatory behavior. The variation of the time-average current as a function of the relative motion between the plasma and the cylinder is also investigated.

Singh, Nagendra↗

NASA NTRS2007

Inner Magnetospheric Electric Fields Derived from IMAGE EUV

The local and global patterns of plasmaspheric plasma transport reflect the influence of electric fields imposed by all sources in the inner magnetosphere. Image sequences of thermal plasma G:istribution obtained from the IMAGE Mission Extreme Ultraviolet Imager can be used to derive plasma motions and, using a magnetic field model, the corresponding electric fields. These motions and fields directly reflect the dynamic coupling of injected plasmasheet plasma and the ionosphere, in addition to solar wind and atmospheric drivers. What is being learned about the morphology of inner magnetospheric electric fields during storm and quite conditions from this new empirical tool will be presented and discussed.

Gallagher, D. L.↗

DOE OSTI2024

HL-2A's ELM cycle simulations by integrating BOUT++'s drift MHD and transport code

A new integrating model has been developed to couple tokamak edge multiscale magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) events and transport simulations, such as edge-localized mode (ELM) cycles. As a proof of principle, we first start from a set of three-field two-fluid model equations, which includes the pressure, current, and vorticity. Here, the equations are separated into the slowly evolving part of the axisymmetric component by taking a time average of the axisymmetric component. The time-averaged fluxes, which are quadratic in fluctuating quantities, act as driven terms for the time-averaged axisymmetric quantities that determine the plasma transport, and therefore the large-scale evolution of the plasma profiles. Then the HL-2A's ELM cycles are simulated using the model. Good agreements of ELM size and pedestal recovery time have been achieved for the solutions obtained from the coupled simulation compared with experiment. For one ELM cycle simulation, the coupled code can achieve a speedup of a factor of up to 30 over standalone code.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

DOE OSTI2020

Simulations of divertor plasmas with inverse sheaths

The effect of strong electron emission from material surfaces has been proposed to form an “inverse sheath”: a region with a positive potential relative to the near-wall plasma which prevents the flow of ions to the wall [M. D. Campanell, “Negative plasma potential relative to electronemitting surfaces,” Phys. Rev. E. 88, 033103 (2013); M. D. Campanell and M. V. Umansky, “Strongly emitting surfaces unable to float below plasma potential,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 1–5 (2016); M. D. Campanell and G. R. Johnson, “Thermionic cooling of the target plasma to a sub-ev temperature,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 1–5 (2019)]. We assess the viability of this regime in a tokamak device using the 2D edge plasma transport code UEDGE [T. Rognlien et al ., “A fully implicit, time dependent 2-D fluid code for modeling tokamak edge plasmas,” J. Nucl. Mater. 196–198, 347–351 (1992)]. Since the UEDGE code does not consider the sheath region directly, we apply boundary conditions at the divertor targets which emulate the physics of both “standard” and “inverse” sheath regimes [R. Masline et al ., “Influence of the inverse sheath on divertor plasma performance in tokamak edge plasma simulations,” Contrib. Plasma Phys. 60, e201900097 (2020)]. Using these boundary conditions, we perform scoping studies to assess plasma parameters near the target by varying the density at the core-edge interface. We observe a smooth transition in the resultant profiles of plasma parameters for the standard sheath, and a bifurcation across the simulation set for plasmas with an inverse sheath. The cause of this bifurcation is assessed by performing the parameter scan both with and without impurity radiation; we observe that the bifurcation persists in both cases, indicating that this bifurcation is caused by plasma recombination.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

DOE OSTI2023

Mesh refinement for anisotropic diffusion in magnetized plasmas

Highly accurate simulation of plasma transport is needed to drive the successful design and operation of magnetically confined fusion reactors. Unfortunately, the extreme anisotropy present in magnetized plasmas results in thin boundary layers that are expensive to resolve. Here, this work investigates how various mesh refinement strategies might reduce that expense to allow for more efficient simulation by comparing standard variable refinement approaches that use a field quantity to an adaptive approach that uses an error estimator. It is first verified that higher order discretization only realizes the proper rate of convergence once the mesh resolves the thin boundary layer, therefore motivating the focusing of refinement on the boundary layer. For three two-dimensional test cases that contain characteristic features of tokamak magnetic fields, an exponential refinement strategy based on the magnetic flux function, which is the standard refinement approach in the field, is compared to an adaptive strategy utilizing the established Zienwiekicz and Zhu error estimator. The adaptive mesh refinement strategy consistently achieves the same accuracy using orders of magnitude less degrees of freedom than either exponential or uniform refinement. This result makes the adaptive refinement strategy more efficient than the exponential refinement strategy while also being more generalizable to problems with complex magnetic geometries. Scaling laws are derived that quantify the improvement in cost of the adaptive refinement strategy over other refinement approaches in 2D and 3D.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2024

Nonlinear modeling of ELM mitigation with RMP on HL-2A

Abstract Nonlinear modeling of mitigation of the edge localized mode (ELM) with resonant magnetic perturbation (RMP) is performed for the HL-2A tokamak, utilizing the three-dimensional (3D) magnetohydrodynamic code JOREK. Based on the 3D equilibrium established after application of the n = 1 ( n is the toroidal mode number) RMP at 4.9 kAt coil current with odd parity, ELM mitigation is successfully simulated consistent with the experimental result. Nonlinear simulations show strong mode coupling among toroidal Fourier harmonics, allowing redistribution of the magnetic energy such that the most unstable toroidal mode saturates at a lower level. This magnetic energy cascade offers an explanation of the RMP-induced ELM mitigation achieved in HL-2A. Detailed examination of the simulation results shows persistent resonant field screening even during the ELM mitigation phase. Finite plasma resistivity however does enable partial penetration of the resonant field thus modifying the edge magnetic topology and characteristics of the edge transport. Plasma radial profiles undergo pronounced changes around the pedestal region, when the magnetic energy of the most unstable toroidal mode reaches the maximum value. Systematic scans of the applied RMP coil current with the JOREK simulations find a threshold value of around 4.5 kAt required for achieving the ELM mitigation on HL-2A.

Physics↗

DOE OSTI2022

Effects of the Wavelength of the Plasma Waves on Cross-Field Electron Transport in Partially Magnetized Plasmas

In this article, the effects of increasing plasma density on the cross-field electron transport driven by kinetic instabilities are investigated. A 2-D collisionless particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation is performed on cases with only singly charged ions and with a mixture of singly and doubly charged ions, at different levels of plasma density. It is observed using the PIC simulations that the level of plasma density affects the plasma waves that are driven by the microinstabilities, including the electron cyclotron drift instability (ECDI) and ion–ion two-stream instability (IITSI). Here, the simulation results suggest that the enhancement of cross-field electron transport is correlated with the excitation of smaller wavelength modes and the increased amplitude of the plasma waves.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗