Effects of toroidal coupling on the non-linear evolution of tearing modes and on the stochastisation of the magnetic field topology in plasmas

Abstract

The resistive MHD equations have been handled in toroidal geometry following the tokamak ordering, in order to obtain a simplified set of non-linear equations. This system of equations is compact, closed, consistent and exact to the first two orders in the expansion in the inverse aspect ratio. Studies of the non-linear evolution of tearing modes in the real geometry of tokamak discharges are now in progress, and quite significant results have been obtained from the numerical code REVE of Fontenay based on our above model. From the analytical results, strong linear coupling between neighbouring modes is expected as is demonstrated by the numerical results in the linear, and non-linear regimes. Moreover, coupling exhibits a stochastic structure of the magnetic field lines, the threshold of which is seen to be easily computed by a simple analytical criterion.