Excitation of external kink mode by trapped energetic particles

Abstract

An unstable fishbone-like non-resonant external kink mode (FLEM) is numerically found to be driven by the precessional drift motion of trapped energetic particles (EPs) in both reversed-field pinch (RFP) and tokamak plasmas, even under the ideal wall boundary condition. In the presence of a sufficiently large fraction of trapped energetic ions in high beta plasmas, the FLEM instability may occur. The excitation condition is discussed in detail. The frequency of the FLEM is linked to the precessional drift frequency of EPs, and varies with the plasma flow speed. Therefore, it is usually much higher than that of the typical resistive wall mode (RWM). In general, the growth rate of FLEM does not depend on the wall resistivity. However, the wall position can significantly affect the mode’s property. The drift kinetic effects from thermal particles (mainly due to the transit resonance of passing particles) play a stabilizing role on FLEMs. In the presence of EPs, the FLEM and the RWM can co-exist or even couple to each other, depending on the plasma parameters. The FLEM instabilities in RFP and tokamaks have rather similar physics nature, although certain sub-dominant characters appear differently in the two configurations.