Global gyrokinetic stability of pressure-gradient-driven electromagnetic modes in tokamaks with regions of low shear.
Tokamaks with large pressure gradients (alpha(max)) formed in regions of weak magnetic shear are shown to be susceptible to novel, low-n, global, kinetic, electromagnetic modes with a toroidal mode number n in the range 2</=n</=12. For a weakly varying monotonic safety factor profile q with its minimum q(min)>1 on the magnetic axis and alpha(max) near q(min), new, global kinetic infernal modes with a strong mode rotation omega(r) and a finite growth rate gamma<|omega(r)| are found. For equilibria with reverse shear where q(min) is off axis and alpha(max) near q(min), the existence of an unstable low-n global branch of Alfve n ion temperature gradient modes is revealed with an oscillatory gamma as a function of n. The addition of trapped electron dynamics is shown to be further destabilizing.
Ganesh
R
R
CRPP, Association EURATOM - Confédération Suisse, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
Vaclavik
J
J