Flow shear stabilization of a hybrid dissipative trapped electron-ion temperature gradient mode in tokamaks

Abstract

A simple physical model for toroidal flow shear stabilization of a hybrid dissipative trapped electron-ion temperature gradient mode (namely, the hybrid electron-ion drift mode) is presented. Coupling between the sheared flows and non-adiabatic electrons is proposed as the stabilization mechanism of the hybrid electron-ion drift mode. This implies that the confinement improvement can be achieved not only through the poloidal sheared rotation flow in the edge region of tokamaks for the L-H transition but also through the toroidal sheared rotation in the core region for further confinement improvement associated with the internal transport barrier and negative shear.