Divergent subcritical convection in magnetized plasma from asymmetric sourcing

Abstract

Asymmetric particle and heat sourcing in a plasma confined in a closed magnetic field line configuration results in convection cells, as is well known. This phenomenon occurs even if the sourcing on average produces density and temperature profiles that are subcritical, i.e., magnetohydrodynamically stable to interchange modes. Such subcritical convection is expected to be small compared to the convection from supercritical driving for which the system is interchange unstable. The ratio of subcritical to supercritical convection is expected to scale as the inverse Reynolds numbers (for large Reynolds numbers). It is shown that this ratio is, in fact, considerably larger. As marginal stability is approached, the subcritical convection grows from very small to almost the unstable convection size, i.e., of order unity. This effect may be similar to why a driven, damped harmonic oscillator increases in amplitude as resonance is approached. A numerical simulation is done to demonstrate this effect. It is also shown that transport from the large convection can be substantial.