Turbulent current drive

Abstract

The Ohm's law is modified when turbulent processes are accounted for. Besides an hyper-resistivity, already well known, pinch terms appear in the electron momentum flux. Moreover it appears that turbulence is responsible for a source term in the Ohm's law, called here turbulent current drive. Two terms contribute to this source. The first term is a residual stress in the momentum flux, while the second contribution is an electro-motive force. A non zero average parallel wave number is needed to get a finite source term. Hence a symmetry breaking mechanism must be invoked, as for ion momentum transport. E × B shear flows and turbulence intensity gradients are shown to provide similar contributions. Moreover this source term has to compete with the collision friction term (resistivity). The effect is found to be significant for a large scale turbulence in spite of an unfavorable scaling with the ratio of the electron to ion mass. Turbulent current drive appears to be a weak effect in the plasma core, but could be substantial in the plasma edge where it may produce up to 10 % of the local current density.