| Abstrakt: |
It is shown that, in addition to usual neoclassical tearing modes, another type of nonclassical tearing mode exists in tokamaks: viz., current-interchange tearing modes (CITMs). CITMs are directly driven by unstable pressure-driven electromagnetic or electrostatic modes of the interchange type (e.g., interchange/ballooning modes, drift waves, etc.) due to the current gradient in tokamaks. Interchange-type modes exchange not only thermal and magnetic energies between flux tubes but also current. In a plasma with a current (or resistivity) gradient, such an interchange can create a current sheet at a mode resonance surface and result in the excitation of CITMs. Note that the interchange mode (i.e., Rayleigh–Taylor instability) is fundamental to tokamak physics. This new theory has an effect on both resistive magnetohydrodynamic stability and transport theories. Instabilities of the interchange type could be directly converted into CITMs, alternative to forming turbulent eddies through nonlinear coupling as in conventional transport theories. In particular, our CITM theory fills in the component in the transport theory of Rechester and Rosenbluth [Phys. Rev. Lett. 40, 38 (1978)] for the origin of magnetic island structure in axisymmetric tokamaks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
