Macroscopic motion of sheath-connected blobs in magnetic fields with arbitrary topology

Abstract

In this study, macroscopic motion of sheath-connected blobs in magnetic fields, having arbitrary topology of the field lines and unfrozen in plasma, is analyzed within the electrostatic limit. Two distinct cases of magnetic configurations, with small and large curvature of the field lines, are considered and the criterion to discern them is deduced. For magnetic configurations with small curvature of the field lines, it is demonstrated that asymmetry of plasma distribution at the blob ends can drive macroscopic motion of a filament due to formation of unequal sheath potentials and establishing the effective Boltzmann potential. For a specific case of magnetic fields with small curvature of the field lines and identical metrics at the sheaths, we show that macroscopic motion of a plasma filament is determined by an effective electrostatic potential, which remains constant in time. For magnetic configurations with large curvature of the field lines, it is shown that motion of sufficiently large blobs is governed by integral distribution of plasma and magnetic field parameters along the field lines leading to blob adjusting its shape and position to the lead of the magnetic field lines in the course of its motion, whereas propagation of small and medium sized blobs can be represented as mutually independent motion of filament transverse cross-sections across the magnetic field lines. The qualitative conclusions on regularities of filament motion are supplied with numerical simulations of blob dynamics in two cases of tokamak-like magnetic fields with sheared and non-sheared field lines.