Radial Electric Field and the Flow in a Tokamak Plasma

M. Okamoto, S. Satake, and N. Nakajima

National Institute for Fusion Science, Toki, Gifu 509-5292, Japan

Neoclassical radial electric fields are calculated in a tokamak with a flow by using a δf Monte Carlo particle simulation code[1]. The δf method solves the time development of the perturbation part of a particle distribution function δf=f-fM, where fM is the local Maxwellian. To include the effect of the plasma flow, the distribution function with a given flow is treated as a perturbation to the background fM in the simulation code. The time development of the radial electric field Er is solved from the obtained ion radial flux Γi. Using the δf code, the relaxation process of Er towards the neoclassical steady-state, in which Γi vanishes, is simulated. It is known that the neoclassical steady state is described as a relationship between the parallel flow and radial electric field[2,3], relaxed states of Er differ according to the given initial flow distribution. Some examples of calculation results are shown in the poster.
A simple analytic model of the time development of the radial electric field is also shown in a case with no temperature gradient. In the analysis, linearized drift kinetic equation is solved up to the order of O(r/R0) and O(u2||/v2th), where u|| is the background parallel flow. The solution of the steady state value of Er with a given u|| is shown to be in a good agreement with the simulation results.

References

[1]W. X. Wang, N. Nakajima, M. Okamoto and S. Murakami, Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion 41, 1091(1999).
[2]F. L. Hinton and R. D. Hazeltine, Rev. Mod. Phys. 48, 239 (1976).
[3]S. V. Novakovskii, C. S. Liu, R. Z. Sagdeev, and M. N. Rosenbluth, Phys. Plasmas 4, 4272 (1997).