Plasma transport in stochastic magnetic field caused by vacuum resonant magnetic perturbations at diverted tokamak edge

Abstract

A kinetic transport simulation for the first 4 ms of the vacuum resonant magnetic perturbations (RMPs) application has been performed for the first time in realistic diverted DIII-D tokamak geometry [J. Luxon, Nucl. Fusion 42, 614 (2002)], with the self-consistent evaluation of the radial electric field and the plasma rotation. It is found that, due to the kinetic effects, the stochastic parallel thermal transport is significantly reduced when compared to the standard analytic model [A. B. Rechester and M. N. Rosenbluth, Phys. Rev. Lett. 40, 38 (1978)] and the nonaxisymmetric perpendicular radial particle transport is significantly enhanced from the axisymmetric level. These trends agree with recent experimental result trends [T. E. Evans, R. A. Moyer, K. H. Burrell et al., Nat. Phys. 2, 419 (2006)]. It is also found, as a side product, that an artificial local reduction of the vacuum RMP fields in the vicinity of the magnetic separatrix can bring the kinetic simulation results to a more detailed agreement with experimental plasma profiles. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3487733]