Global gyrokinetic stability of pressure-gradient-driven electromagnetic modes in tokamaks with regions of low shear
Tokamaks with large pressure gradients (alpha(max)) formed in regions of weak magnetic shear are shown to be susceptible to novel, low-n, global, kinetic, electromagnetic modes with a toroidal mode number n in the range 2 <= n <= 12. For a weakly varying monotonic safety factor profile q with its minimum q(min)> 1 on the magnetic axis and alpha(max) near q(min), new, global kinetic infernal modes with a strong mode rotation omega(r) and a finite growth rate gamma <vertical bar omega(r)vertical bar are found. For equilibria with reverse shear where q(min) is off axis and alpha(max) near q(min), the existence of an unstable low-n global branch of Alfven ion temperature gradient modes is revealed with an oscillatory gamma as a function of n. The addition of trapped electron dynamics is shown to be further destabilizing.
WOS:000228390600020
2005
94
14
145002
REVIEWED