Energetic-ion excited internal kink modes with weak magnetic shear in tokamak plasmas**Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 11261140326).

Abstract

The energetic particle driven internal kink mode is investigated in this paper for tokamak plasma with weak magnetic shear. With the effect of energetic particles, the internal mode structure in tokamak plasma does not appear as a rigid step-function when safety factor passes through q = 1 rational surface. It is found that even when the rational surface is removed, the mode may be still unstable under the low magnetic shear condition if the energetic particle drive is strong enough; with the low shear region of safety factor profile widening, the mode becomes more unstable with its growth-rate increasing. Furthermore, we find that the existence of the q = 1 rational surface does not have a significant effect on the stability of the plasma if energetic particles are present, which is very different from the scenarios of the ideal-MHD modes.