Abstract
Plasma flow velocity shears parallel and perpendicular to magnetic field lines are independently controlled and superimposed by a modified plasma-synthesis method with concentrically three-segmented electron and ion emitters. The fluctuation amplitude of a drift wave with an azimuthal mode number m = 3 is observed to increase with increasing parallel shear strength in the absence of a perpendicular shear. When the perpendicular shear is superimposed on the parallel shear, the drift wave with m = 3 is found to transform into that with m = 2. Furthermore, the parallel shear strength required for excitation of the drift wave increases with a decrease in the azimuthal mode number. Based on these results, superposition of the parallel and perpendicular shears can affect characteristics of the drift wave through variation of the azimuthal mode number. These phenomena can be verified by theoretical calculations of the growth rate of the drift wave using an eigenmode analysis.
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