Zonal jet creation from secondary instability of drift waves for plasma edge turbulence

DOI10.1007/S11401-019-0165-1zbMATH Open1428.76071arXiv1901.08590OpenAlexW2982823644WikidataQ126786120 ScholiaQ126786120MaRDI QIDQ2286233FDOQ2286233

Authors: Di Qi, Andrew J. Majda 

Publication date: 10 January 2020

Published in: Chinese Annals of Mathematics. Series B (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: A new strategy is presented to explain the creation and persistence of zonal flows widely observed in plasma edge turbulence. The core physics in the edge regime of the magnetic-fusion tokamaks can be described qualitatively by the one-state modified Hasegawa-Mima (MHM) model, which creates enhanced zonal flows and more physically relevant features in comparison with the familiar Charney-Hasegawa-Mima (CHM) model for both plasma and geophysical flows. The generation mechanism of zonal jets is displayed from the secondary instability analysis via nonlinear interactions with a background base state. Strong exponential growth in the zonal modes is induced due to a non-zonal drift wave base state in the MHM model, while stabilizing damping effect is shown with a zonal flow base state. Together with the selective decay effect from the dissipation, the secondary instability offers a complete characterization of the convergence process to the purely zonal structure. Direct numerical simulations with and without dissipation are carried out to confirm the instability theory. It shows clearly the emergence of a dominant zonal flow from pure non-zonal drift waves with small perturbation in the initial configuration. In comparison, the CHM model does not create instability in the zonal modes and usually converges to homogeneous turbulence.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1901.08590

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zbMATH Keywords

drift wave turbulencesecondary instabilitymodified Hasegawa-Mima modelzonal flow generation

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

PDEs in connection with optics and electromagnetic theory (35Q60) Stability and instability of magnetohydrodynamic and electrohydrodynamic flows (76E25) Transition to turbulence (76F06)

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Cited In (8)

• Nonlinear interaction and turbulence transition in the limiting regimes of plasma edge turbulence
• Transient metastability and selective decay for the coherent zonal structures in plasma drift wave turbulence
• Cascade generation of zonal flows by the drift wave turbulence
• Characterization of zonal flow generation in weak electrostatic turbulence
• Zonal flows and pattern formation
• Nonlinear growth of zonal flows by secondary instability in general magnetic geometry
• Rossby and drift wave turbulence and zonal flows: the Charney-Hasegawa-Mima model and its extensions
• Streamer and zonal flow generation from envelope modulations in drift wave turbulence

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