A four-field gyrofluid model with neoclassical effects for the study of the rotation velocity of magnetic islands in tokamaks

TL;DR

This paper develops a four-field gyrofluid model incorporating neoclassical effects and FLR corrections to study magnetic island rotation velocities in tokamaks, considering different collisional regimes.

Contribution

The paper introduces a new gyrofluid model with neoclassical and FLR effects for analyzing magnetic island rotation in tokamaks, extending previous models to include additional damping effects.

Findings

The model predicts island rotation velocity dependence on plasma collisionality.

In the weak damping regime, the model aligns with previous results.

In the intermediate damping regime, FLR corrections significantly influence the rotation velocity.

Abstract

A four-field system of equations which includes the neoclassical flow damping effects and the lowest-order finite-Larmor-radius (FLR) corrections is deduced from a system of gyrofluid equations. The FLR corrections to the poloidal flow damping are calculated by solving a simplified version of the gyrokinetic equation. This system of equations is applied to the study of a chain of freely rotating magnetic islands in a tokamak, resulting from the nonlinear evolution of a resistive tearing mode, to determine the islands rotation velocity consistently with the fields radial profiles close to the resonant surface. The island rotation velocity is determined by imposing the torque-balance condition. The equations thus deduced are applied to the study of two different collisional regimes, namely the weak-damping regime and the intermediate damping regime. The equations reduce, in the weak damping regime, to a form already obtained in previous works, while an additional term, containing the lowest order FLR corrections to the poloidal flow damping, appears in the intermediate damping regime. The numerical integration of the final system of equations permits to determine the dependence of the island rotation velocity on the plasma collisionality and the islands width compared to the ion Larmor radius.