Linear analysis of plasma pressure-driven mode in reversed shear cylindrical tokamak plasmas

Abstract

The linear behavior of the dominant unstable mode (m = 2, n = 1) and its high order harmonics (m = 2n, n ≥ 2) are numerically investigated in a reversed magnetic shear cylindrical plasma with two q = 2 rational surfaces on the basis of the non-reduced magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) equations. The results show that with low beta (beta is defined as the ratio of plasma pressure to magnetic field pressure), the dominant mode is a classical double tearing mode (DTM). However, when the beta is sufficiently large, the mode is driven mainly by plasma pressure. In such a case, both the linear growth rate and mode structures are strongly affected by pressure, while almost independent of the resistivity. This means that the dominant mode undergoes a transition from DTM to pressure-driven mode with the increase of pressure, which is consistent with the experimental result in ASDEX Upgrade. The simulations also show that the distance between two rational surfaces has an important influence on the pressure needed in mode transition. The larger the distance between two rational surfaces, the larger the pressure for driving the mode transition is. Motivated by the phenomena that the high-m modes may dominate over low-m modes at small inter-resonance distance, the high-m modes with different pressures and q profiles are studied too.