Electron heat diffusivity in radially-bounded ergodic region of toroidal plasma

Abstract

Drift-kinetic simulations are performed to investigate effect of ergodic field lines caused by resonant magnetic perturbations (RMPs) on radial heat diffusivity of electrons in the edge region of toroidal plasma of collisionality . The following is assumed in the simulations. The ergodic region is bounded radially on both sides by closed magnetic surfaces. The pressure gradient remains nonzero in the ergodic region because of an incomplete flattening of the pressure profile, and the characteristic scale length of the pressure gradient is of larger order than the overlapping width of the neighbouring magnetic islands. It is found in the quasi-steady state of that the electron heat diffusivity is of smaller order than the theoretical estimate derived by the Rechester–Rosenbluth model (Rechester and Rosenbluth 1978 Phys. Rev. Lett. 40 38). The radial heat conduction is dominated not only by parallel motions along the ergodic field lines, but also by trapped particle motions generated by the RMP field. The contribution of the trapped particles reduces the radial heat conduction enhanced by the parallel motions.