Impurity radiation seeding of neoclassical tearing mode growth

TL;DR

This paper investigates how impurity radiation cooling can seed and drive the growth of neoclassical tearing modes in tokamak plasmas, combining simulations and theoretical modeling to understand the underlying physics.

Contribution

It introduces a new understanding of impurity radiation as a seed mechanism for NTM growth, supported by NIMROD simulations and a theoretical neoclassical driving term.

Findings

Impurity radiation cooling can trigger NTM seed island growth.

The growth rate is proportional to electron neoclassical viscosity.

A theoretical model accounts for nonlinear island growth.

Abstract

The physics of neoclassical tearing mode (NTM) is of great concern to the tokamak plasma stability and performance, especially in the burning plasma regime. Whereas a great deal about the different seeding mechanisms have been understood, and in many situations the seed event can be clearly identified, the potential seeding process of NTM due to the resistive tearing instability driven by the impurity radiation cooling still needs more studies. Recent NIMROD simulations have demonstrated that the local impurity radiation cooling can drive the seed island growth and trigger the subsequent onset of neoclassical tearing mode instability. The seed island is mainly driven by the local helical perturbation of the diamagnetic current induced by the perturbed pressure gradient as a result of the impurity radiative cooling on the rational surface. A heuristic closure for the neoclassical viscosity is adopted, and the seed island is further driven by the perturbed bootstrap current induced from the neoclassical electron viscous stress in the extended Ohm's law. The growth rate of the NTM in simulations is found proportional to the electron neoclassical viscosity, and a theoretical neoclassical driving term is adopted to account for the nonlinear neoclassical island growth in the simulations.