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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 37 records · Page 2
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2023

Magnetic island formation and rotation braking induced by low-Z impurity penetration in an EAST plasma

Abstract Recent observations of the successive formations of the 4 / 1 , 3 / 1 , and 2 / 1 magnetic islands as well as the subsequent braking of the 2 / 1 mode during a low- Z impurity penetration process in EAST experiments are well reproduced in our 3 D resistive MHD simulations. The enhanced parallel current perturbation induced by impurity radiation predominately contributes to the tearing mode growth, and the 2 / 1 island rotation is mainly damped by the impurity accumulation as results of the influence from high n modes.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Non-disruptive error field identification based on magnetic island healing

Here a technique to identify intrinsic error fields (EFs) in tokamaks with minimized risk of disruption is demonstrated on the DIII-D tokamak. The method extends the conventional driven magnetic island ‘compass scan’ approach by modifying asynchronous control waveforms to enable prompt healing of the island instability. Healing of the island is achieved by reducing the imposed non-axisymmetric coil current and raising the density (here via gas fueling). The method is also shown to support multiple island threshold measurements per pulse, thus reducing the number of dedicated pulses necessary to conduct an EF identification. Non-linear modeling with the TM1 code reproduces the experimental results and approximately recovers the critical density required for island healing. Island healing is explained in the non-linear modeling by an increase in the viscous coupling between the static island and the nearby flowing plasma, thus healing the island as it accelerates into the plasma frame. Due to both simplicity and risk minimization, this technique is suitable for plasma-based EF identification in the early commissioning stages of future disruption-averse tokamaks such as ITER and SPARC.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Observation of magnetic islands in tokamak plasmas during the suppression of edge-localized modes

In tokamaks, a leading platform for fusion energy, periodic filamentary plasma eruptions known as edge-localized modes occur in plasmas with high-energy confinement and steep pressure profiles at the plasma edge. These edge-localized modes could damage the tokamak wall but can be suppressed using small three-dimensional magnetic perturbations. Here we demonstrate that these magnetic perturbations can change the magnetic topology just inside the steep gradient region of the plasma edge. We identify signatures of a magnetic island, and their observation is linked to the suppression of edge-localized modes. We compare high-resolution measurements of perturbed magnetic surfaces with predictions from ideal magnetohydrodynamic theory where the magnetic topology is preserved. Although ideal magnetohydrodynamics adequately describes the measurements in plasmas exhibiting edge-localized modes, it proves insufficient for plasmas where these modes are suppressed. Nonlinear resistive magnetohydrodynamic modelling supports this observation. Our study experimentally confirms the predicted role of magnetic islands in inhibiting the occurrence of edge-localized modes. This will be beneficial for physics-based predictions in future fusion devices to control these modes.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Perturbed Ion Temperature and Toroidal Flow Profile Measurements in Rotating Neoclassical Tearing Mode Magnetic Islands

The perturbed ion temperature and toroidal flow were measured in rotating Neoclassical Tearing Modes (NTM) in a tokamak for the first time. These toroidally and radially resolved profiles were obtained by impurity ion spectroscopy in a 2,1 NTM in DIII-D. In agreement with drift-kinetic simulations, the electron temperature profile is flat, while the ion temperature gradient is restored across the magnetic island O-point in the presence of fast ions; the perturbed flow has minima in the O-points and maxima at the X-points. Furthermore, these measurements provide the first confirmation of the theoretically expected ion temperature and flow response to a magnetic island needed to predict the NTM on set threshold scaling for ITER and other future tokamaks.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Validation of density pump-out by pedestal-foot magnetic island formation prior to ELM suppression in KSTAR and DIII-D tokamaks

Abstract TM1 nonlinear two-fluid simulations reveal key characteristics of density pump-out caused by pedestal-foot island formation when applying resonant magnetic perturbation (RMP). These characteristics include a bifurcation in pump-out with a low RMP coil current threshold, a sensitivity of pump-out magnitude to q 95 , and the magnitude of pump-out scaling as the square root of the RMP coil current. Dedicated experiments are carried out in the KSTAR and DIII-D tokamaks to validate these features and show that: (1) a staircase bifurcation in density pump-out is observed when slowly ramping up the n = 1 RMP current, and the density fluctuations are found to be slightly decreased from the pedestal-foot to the pedestal-top; (2) the magnitude of density pump-out becomes weaker when decreasing q 95 from 5.5 to 4.9, and a partial recovery of density pump-out is observed when q 95 is ramped down to lower than 4.9; and (3) analysis of a DIII-D database of n = 3 RMP edge-localized mode control experiments finds that the magnitude of density pump-out is proportional to the square root of RMP coil current Δ n e / n e ∝ I RMP 0.5 . These experimental observations are consistent with TM1 simulations.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Experimental signatures of electron cyclotron wave energy condensation in magnetic islands

Here, bifurcation of the electron temperature perturbation (ΔT e ) in magnetic islands due to electron cyclotron current drive (ECCD) is reported for the first time in toroidal plasmas. In this DIIID experiment ΔT e spontaneously increases by 50% in a growing 2,1 island which in turn rapidly shrinks, consistent with improved stabilization by the ECCD due to the temperature bifurcation. This non-linearity of ΔT e maps out a hysteresis in the island evolution cycle, in qualitative agreement with the theoretically predicted radio frequency current condensation effect. Therefore, this observed bifurcation can be critical for the avoidance of disruptions caused by tearing modes in tokamaks.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Gyrokinetic simulations of the effects of magnetic islands on microturbulence in KSTAR

Gyrokinetic simulations are utilized to study effects of magnetic islands (MIs) on the ion temperature gradient (ITG) turbulence in the KSTAR tokamak with resonant magnetic perturbations. Simulations show that the transport is controlled by the nonlinear interactions between the ITG turbulence and self-generated vortex flows and zonal flows, leading to an anisotropic structure of fluctuation and transport on the poloidal plane and in the toroidal direction. MIs greatly enhance turbulent transport of both particle and heat. The turbulent transport exhibits variations in the toroidal direction, with transport through the resonant layer near the island X-point being enhanced when the X-point is located at the outer mid-plane. A quantitative agreement is shown between simulations and KSTAR experiments in terms of time frequency and perpendicular wavevector spectrum.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Experimental inference of flux tunneling between magnetic island chains in tokamaks

We report confinement bifurcations due to flux tunneling in magnetic islands in toroidal plasmas. This occurs in 2/1 islands, triggered by decoupling of non-overlapping adjacent 5/2 islands. While subject to electron cyclotron current drive (ECCD), the temperature at the 2/1 O-point is flat before but peaks after decoupling. Here, this is shown to be due to a bifurcation from stochastic to nested magnetic structure, caused by the removal of flux tunneling through intersecting manifolds of overlapping heteroclinic tangles. 2/1 island stability correlates with coupling events in an ITER baseline scenario plasma where ECCD can not stabilize the coupled islands, showing the critical impact of flux tunneling on disruption avoidance in tokamaks.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Global gyrokinetic simulations of the impact of magnetic island on ion temperature gradient driven turbulence

The effect of island width on the multi-scale interactions between magnetic island (MI) and ion temperature gradient (ITG) turbulence has been investigated based on the global gyrokinetic approach. It is found that the coupling between the island and turbulence is enhanced when the MI width (w) becomes larger. A vortex flow that is highly sensitive to the width of the MI can be triggered, ultimately resulting in a potent E × B shear flow and a consequent reduction in turbulent transport. The shearing rate induced by the vortex flow is minimum at the O-point while it is maximum at both of the two reconnection points of the island, i.e. the X-points, regardless of the island width. There exists a nonmonotonic relationship between zonal flow (ZF) amplitude and island width, showing that the ZF is partially suppressed by medium-sized MIs whereas enhanced in the case of large island. A larger MI can tremendously damage the ITG mode structure, resulting in higher turbulent transport at the X-point whereas a lower one at the O-point, respectively. Such phenomenon will be less distinct at very small island widths below w/a ~ 8% ≈ 12ρ i (a is the minor radius and ρ i the ion gyroradius), where it shows that turbulence near the X-point is hardly affected although it is still suppressed inside the island. Furthermore, the influence of different island sizes on turbulence transport level is also discussed.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Anisotropic E × B shearing rate in a magnetic island

We derive the E × B shearing rate associated with vortex flow inside a macroscopic magnetic island (MI) in axisymmetric toroidal geometry. Due to the elongation of the MI and incompressibility of the E × B flow, the shearing rate near X-points is much lower than that near the mid-plane (x-axis of the local Cartesian coordinate) of the MI on the same flux surface. Furthermore, the rate formally vanishes at the X-points where the local poloidal magnetic field associated with the MI stagnates. Here, this calculation of E × B shearing profile and, in particular, minimal E × B shear near the X-points is consistent with the recent experimental finding that turbulence tends to spread into an MI through regions around the X-points and can contribute to more thorough quantitative interpretation of the results from experiments and simulations.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Reconstruction of magnetic island electron temperature in mixed second and third harmonic electron cyclotron emission conditions

Here we develop a method to use the mixed third and second harmonic electron cyclotron emission (ECE) signal in the DIII-D tokamak to reconstruct the electron temperature profile of a rotating magnetic island. The third harmonic ECE is removed by extracting the rotating-island-associated fluctuations in the mixed signal, and the extracted fluctuation is combined with the equilibrium temperature obtained from other diagnostics after correcting for the third harmonic reabsorption. The accuracy of the reconstruction is studied by considering a DIII-D shot where an unmixed signal from an island is available on the low field side of the plasma and a mixed signal from the same island is available from the high field side. It is found that the reconstruction method successfully reproduces the island shape and temperature perturbation magnitude without the distortion caused by third harmonic ECE mixing. However, the radial location of the reconstructed island is somewhat displaced relative to the location of the q = 2 surface in the axisymmetric equilibrium reconstruction, resulting in a corresponding inaccuracy in the absolute temperature of the island. It is conjectured that this may arise from an inaccuracy of the reconstructed axisymmetric equilibrium in this region.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Drift kinetic theory of the NTM magnetic islands in a finite beta general geometry tokamak plasma

In (Imada et al 2019 Nucl. Fusion 59 046016 and references therein) a new 4D drift kinetic nonlinear theory, valid in the limit of a low beta, small inverse aspect ratio, circular cross section, toroidal geometry, to describe the plasma response to the neoclassical tearing mode (NTM) magnetic perturbation is derived. In (Dudkovskaia et al 2021 Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion 63 054001) this theory is reduced in a low collisionality limit, which allows a dimensionality reduction to a 3D problem to efficiently resolve the collisional dissipation layer in the vicinity of the trapped-passing boundary. (Dudkovskaia et al 2021 Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion 63 054001) adopts an improved model for the magnetic drift frequency, which reduces the threshold magnetic island half-width from $8.73\rho_{b i}$, where $\rho_{b i}$ is the trapped ion banana orbit width, to $1.46 \rho_{b i}$, making it in closer agreement with experimental observations for the large aspect ratio tokamak equilibrium. In the present paper, the theory is extended to a high beta, arbitrary tokamak geometry to capture the plasma shaping effects on the NTM threshold physics with the focus on the non-zero triangularity discharges that are known to have a strong impact on the plasma MHD stability. First, it is found that the higher triangularity plasma is more prone to NTMs which is in agreement with the 2/1 tearing mode onset relative frequency measurements in DIII-D. Second, the NTM threshold dependence on the tokamak inverse aspect ratio obtained in (Dudkovskaia et al 2021 Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion 63 054001) is refined and extended to a finite aspect ratio limit. Third, the NTM threshold dependence on poloidal beta is obtained and benchmarked against the EAST threshold island width measurements.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Two-fluid model of rf current condensation in magnetic islands

The stabilization of tearing modes with rf waves is subject to a nonlinear effect, termed rf current condensation, that has the potential to greatly enhance and localize current driven within magnetic islands. Here we extend previous investigations of this effect with a two fluid model that captures the balance of diffusive and thermal equilibration processes within the island. We show that the effective power and resulting strength of the condensation effect can be greatly enhanced by avoiding collisional heat loss to the ions. The relative impact of collisions on the overall power balance within the island depends on the ratio of the characteristic diffusion timescale and the electron–ion equilibration time, rather than the latter alone. Although relative heat loss to ions increases with island size, the heating efficiency does as well. In particular, we show that the latter safely dominates for large deposition profiles, as is typically the case for lower hybrid current drive. This supports the possibility of passive stabilization of neoclassical tearing modes without the precise aiming of the rf waves required for electron cyclotron current drive stabilization.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

Effect of Magnetic Islands on Neoclassical Heat Diffusivity in a Global Tokamak Simulation

Resonant magnetic perturbations (RMPs) alter magnetic field topology via island formation and can modify core transport in toroidal fusion devices. Using the global gyrokinetic particle‐in‐cell code XGC‐S, originally developed for stellarator geometries, we quantify how island topology affects neoclassical heat transport in a circular tokamak with ($m,n$) = (5,2) RMP‐induced islands. Electron radial heat diffusivity exhibits a two‐peak structure with a dominant enhancement near the O/X‐point region and a secondary peak at the outer island boundary, whereas ion transport remains close to the neoclassical prediction. The observed electron diffusivity is strongly enhanced over the neoclassical baseline but remains well below the Rechester–Rosenbluth estimate, consistent with the non‐ergodic character of the island topology. The density dependence of diffusivity is weaker inside the islands than outside, indicating the presence of topology‐driven transport channels that do not depend strongly on collisionality. Two‐dimensional heat flux maps reveal an up–down antisymmetric structure at the island separatrices consistent with magnetic gradient and curvature drift effects, in contrast to the symmetric temperature flattening inside the islands. These results identify topology‐dependent avenues for electron heat transport in RMP‐perturbed cores and suggest regimes in which island geometry, rather than collisions alone, governs radial transport.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Drag exerted by drift-acoustic radiation on a magnetic island

The Island Equilibrium and Transport (IslET) model is extended to allow for the effects of ion compressibility albeit for a constant electron temperature. The model describes fully relaxed, saturated, steady-state magnetic islands arising from the evolution of a tearing mode caused either by an instability or an externally imposed resonant perturbation. It assumes that the collision frequency lies in the semi-collisional regime. A salient new feature of the extended model is an equation describing the transport of parallel momentum. The model is applied to evaluate the drag exerted on a thin island by the emission of drift-acoustic waves.

Physics↗
DOE OSTI2026

Final Technical Report for DoE award DE‐SC0023367 “Energetic Electron Transport in Magnetized Plasma with Magnetic Islands”

This project investigated how plasmas interact with energetic particles and solid materials under extreme conditions relevant to fusion energy, space plasmas, and planetary environments. Using experiments on the DIII-D National Fusion Facility, the research first examined how high-energy electrons move, become trapped, and are released in plasmas containing magnetic islands—structures commonly found in fusion reactors and Earth’s magnetosphere—providing new insight into particle transport and acceleration processes. The project also explored plasma-driven chemical reactions that can occur during meteoroid entry into planetary atmospheres, demonstrating that simple molecules such as ammonia can be produced and survive in high-temperature plasma conditions. Together, these results improve understanding of plasma behavior across laboratory, space, and planetary systems while informing fusion plasma control and plasma–material interaction studies. The project additionally contributed to workforce development by training graduate students, undergraduates, and early-career researchers and by disseminating results through peer-reviewed publications and international scientific conferences.

Orlov, Dmitri Mikhailovich [UC San Diego] (ORCID:0↗
DOE OSTI2024

Enhancement of ECCD by the current condensation effect for stabilizing large magnetic islands caused by neoclassical tearing modes in tokamak plasmas

The radio frequency current condensation effect reported in Reiman and Fisch (2018 Phys. Rev. Lett. 121 225001) is modeled in the nonlinear resistive magnetohydrodynamic code. A series of numerical investigations have been performed to investigate the enhancement of electron cyclotron current drive (ECCD) by the current condensation effect during the control of neoclassical tearing mode (NTM) in tokamak plasmas. In the numerical model, both the parallel transport and the perpendicular transport of electron temperature are considered. The EC driven current and driven perturbed electron temperature can nonlinearly evolve within the given magnetic configuration and eventually reach saturation states. The input power threshold of ECCD and the fold bifurcation phenomenon are numerically verified via nonlinear simulations. The numerical results show good agreements with the analytical results. Moreover, spatial distributions of EC current for the two solutions at different condensed level are displayed. The control effectiveness of ECCD for large NTM islands has been evaluated while considering the current condensation effect. While taking into account current condensation effect, for a sufficiently large input power, a larger island can be more effectively stabilized than a smaller one, which suggests a reassessment of the previous idea that the ECCD should always be turned on as early as possible. The potential physics mechanism behind the ECCD control have all been discussed in detail. Furthermore, the condensation effect is found to have favorable effects on the radial misalignment of ECCD. In the consideration of the situation for extremely localized control needs, a highly peaked heating profile is adopted to verify that the fold bifurcation phenomenon still exists and the current condensation effect can still take effect in this extreme condition.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗