Influence of anomalous perpendicular transport on linear tearing mode dynamics in tokamak plasmas

Abstract

The analysis of a previous paper [A. Cole and R. Fitzpatrick, Phys. Plasmas 13, 032503 (2006)] that maps out all of the two-fluid response regimes of a linear tearing layer interacting with an externally generated resonant magnetic perturbation, in a large aspect-ratio tokamak plasma, is generalized to take into account realistic levels of perpendicular particle transport. A new response-regime map is obtained that differs substantially, in many respects, from the old one. The improved analysis is first employed to find all of the two-fluid growth-rate regimes of a non-interacting low-mode-number tearing mode in a large aspect-ratio tokamak plasma. The analysis is then used to determine the scaling of the error-field penetration threshold with machine parameters in large aspect-ratio tokamak plasmas.