-
Author(s):
H. Sugama and T.-H. Watanabe
-
Title:
Collisionless Damping of Zonal Flows in Helical Systems
Date of publication:
Sep. 2005
-
Key words:
zonal flows, geodesic acoustic modes, gyrokinetics, collisionless damping, helical systems,
-
Abstract:
Collisionless time evolution of zonal flows in helical systems is investigated. An analytical expression describing the collisionless response of the zonal-flow potential to the initial potential and a given turbulence source is derived from the gyrokinetic equations combined with the quasineutrality condition. The dispersion relation for the geodesic acoustic mode (GAM) in helical systems is derived from the short-time response kernel for the zonal-flow potential. It is found that helical ripples in the magnetic field strength as well as finite orbit widths of passing ions enhance the GAM damping. The radial drift motions of particles trapped in helical ripples cause the residual zonal-flow level in the collisionless long-time limit to be lower for longer radial wave lengths and deeper helical ripples. On the other hand, a high-level zonal-flow response, which is not affected by helical-ripple-trapped particles, can be maintained for a longer time by reducing their radial drift velocity. This implies a possibility that helical configurations optimized for reducing neoclassical ripple transport can simultaneously enhance zonal flows which lower anomalous transport. The validity of our analytical results is verified by gyrokinetic Vlasov simulation.
-
|
