Radial Particle Transport Research Articles

Development of a New Solver to Model the Fish-Hook Effect in a Centrifugal Classifier

Centrifugal air classifiers are often used for classification of particle gas flows in the mineral industry and various other sectors. In this paper, a new solver based on the multiphase particle-in-cell (MP-PIC) method, which takes into account an interaction between particles, is presented. This makes it possible to investigate the flow process in the classifier in more detail, especially the influence of solid load on the flow profile and the fish-hook effect that sometimes occurs. Depending on the operating conditions, the fish-hook sometimes occurs in such apparatus and lead to a reduction in classification efficiency. Therefore, a better understanding and a representation of the fish-hook in numerical simulations is of great interest. The results of the simulation method are compared with results of previous simulation method, where particle–particle interactions are neglected. Moreover, a validation of the numerical simulations is carried out by comparing experimental data from a laboratory plant based on characteristic values such as pressure loss and classification efficiency. The comparison with experimental data shows that both methods provide similar good values for the classification efficiency d50; however, the fish-hook effect is only reproduced when particle-particle interaction is taken into account. The particle movement prove that the fish-hook effect is due to a strong concentration accumulation in the outer area of the classifier. These particle accumulations block the radial transport of fine particles into the classifier, which are then entrained by coarser particles into the coarse material.

Self-consistent model of the plasma staircase and nonlinear Schrödinger equation with subquadratic power nonlinearity.

A new basis has been found for the theory of self-organization of transport avalanches and jet zonal flows in L-mode tokamak plasma, the so-called "plasma staircase" [Dif-Pradalier et al., Phys. Rev. E 82, 025401(R) (2010)PLEEE81539-375510.1103/PhysRevE.82.025401]. The jet zonal flows are considered as a wave packet of coupled nonlinear oscillators characterized by a complex time- and wave-number-dependent wave function; in a mean-field approximation this function is argued to obey a discrete nonlinear Schrödinger equation with subquadratic power nonlinearity. It is shown that the subquadratic power leads directly to a white Lévy noise, and to a Lévy fractional Fokker-Planck equation for radial transport of test particles (via wave-particle interactions). In a self-consistent description the avalanches, which are driven by the white Lévy noise, interact with the jet zonal flows, which form a system of semipermeable barriers to radial transport. We argue that the plasma staircase saturates at a state of marginal stability, in whose vicinity the avalanches undergo an ever-pursuing localization-delocalization transition. At the transition point, the event-size distribution of the avalanches is found to be a power law w_{τ}(Δn)∼Δn^{-τ}, with the drop-off exponent τ=(sqrt[17]+1)/2≃2.56. This value is an exact result of the self-consistent model. The edge behavior bears signatures enabling to associate it with the dynamics of a self-organized critical (SOC) state. At the same time the critical exponents, pertaining to this state, are found to be inconsistent with classic models of avalanche transport based on sand piles and their generalizations, suggesting that the coupled avalanche-jet zonal flow system operates on different organizing principles. The results obtained have been validated in a numerical simulation of the plasma staircase using flux-driven gyrokinetic code for L-mode Tore-Supra plasma.

A 1D Lyman-alpha profile camera for plasma edge neutral studies on the DIII-D tokamak.

A one dimensional, absolutely calibrated pinhole camera system was installed on the DIII-D tokamak to measure edge Lyman-alpha (Ly-α) emission from hydrogen isotopes, which can be used to infer neutral density and ionization rate profiles. The system is composed of two cameras, each providing a toroidal fan of 20 lines of sight, viewing the plasma edge on the inboard and outboard side of DIII-D. The cameras' views lie in a horizontal plane 77cm below the midplane. At its tangency radius, each channel provides a radial resolution of ∼2cm full width at half maximum (FWHM) with a total coverage of 22cm. Each camera consists of a rectangular pinhole, Ly-α reflective mirror, narrow-band Ly-α transmission filter, and a 20 channel AXUV photodetector. The combined mirror and transmission filter have a FWHM of 5nm, centered near the Ly-α wavelength of 121.6nm and is capable of rejecting significant, parasitic carbon-III (C-III) emission from intrinsic plasma impurities. To provide a high spatial resolution measurement in a compact footprint, the camera utilizes advanced engineering and manufacturing techniques including 3D printing, high stability mirror mounts, and a novel alignment procedure. Absolutely calibrated, spatially resolved Ly-α brightness measurements utilize a bright, isolated line with low parasitic surface reflections and enable quantitative comparison to modeling to study divertor neutral leakage, main chamber fueling, and radial particle transport.

Bayesian analysis of turbulent transport coefficients in 2D interchange dominated ExB turbulence involving flow shear

While turbulent transport is known to dominate the radial particle and energy transport in the plasma edge, a self-consistent description of turbulent transport in mean-field transport codes remains lacking. Mean-field closure models based on the turbulent kinetic energy (k ⊥) and turbulent enstrophy (ζ⊥) have recently been proposed to self-consistently model this transport. This contribution analyses the diffusive particle transport relations of these models by means of the Bayesian framework for parameter estimation and model comparison. The reference data includes a set of isothermal simulations that not only include the scrape-off layer (SOL) but also the outer core region (in which a drift wave-like model is activated) and a set of anisothermal SOL simulations, both obtained with the TOKAM2D turbulence code. This analysis shows that the k ⊥(–ζ⊥) model does not appropriately capture the diffusion coefficients for these new data sets, presumably due to the strong flows in the diamagnetic direction that appear in these new cases. While flow shear is expected to quench the turbulence and the turbulent transport, its effect was not explicitly taken into account in the earlier k ⊥(–ζ⊥) transport models. As flow shear provides a new mechanism for the decorrelation of the turbulence, we propose to introduce an additional time scale in the diffusive transport relation as . Inspiration is drawn from shear decorrelation times reported in literature to propose several new candidate models, which are then analysed in a Bayesian setting. This allowed identifying irrelevant terms for certain models and to rank all models according to the Bayesian evidence. While the new models accounting for shear do improve the match to the data, significant errors still remain. Also, no single model could be identified that performs best for all data sets.

Effect of non-axisymmetric perturbations on the ambipolar Er and neoclassical particle flux inside the ITER pedestal region

The transport dynamics of impurities in the pedestal region of ITER plasmas is of crucial interest since this regulates the penetration of impurities from the edge into the core plasma, where an excessive accumulation of impurities can degrade their fusion performance. In the pedestal region of H-mode tokamak plasmas, anomalous transport is highly reduced and impurity transport is found to be well described by the neoclassical theory. Under these conditions, perturbations to the axisymmetric tokamak geometry can strongly affect both the radial electric field and particle transport. In this work, we describe the results of numerical studies performed to quantify the effects on the pedestal ambipolar electric field and radial particle fluxes of the non-axisymmetric fields, associated with both the intrinsic toroidal field ripple and extrinsic fields applied for ELM control, for ITER Q = 10 plasma conditions with emphasis on high Z impurity transport. It is found that the effect of the ITER toroidal field ripple on high Z impurity transport is negligible. On the contrary, extrinsic three-dimensional fields applied for ELM control cause a strong modification of the pedestal ambipolar electric (to less negative values) and the appearance of multi-valued solutions for the pedestal electric field, analogue to core stellarator transport significantly increasing the outward character of neoclassical pedestal transport for both the main plasma ions (D and T in ITER) and high Z impurities, suggesting a strong modification of the background plasma profiles. Finally, it is found that for the Z impurity, its quantitative evaluation has uncertainties (with important implications for the radial flow direction) associated with the high poloidal Mach number ~ 1, due to the high pedestal electric field and large ion mass, which renders the first order neoclassical theory questionable. Detailed ITER MHD 3D equilibria and a benchmark of SFINCS against NEO and NCLASS codes has also been obtained.

Global calculation of neoclassical impurity transport including the variation of electrostatic potential

Recently, the validity range of the approximations commonly used in neoclassical calculation has been reconsidered. One of the primary motivations behind this trend is observation of an impurity hole in LHD (Large Helical Device), i.e. the formation of an extremely hollow density profile of an impurity ion species, such as carbon $\text{C}^{6+}$ , in the plasma core region where a negative radial electric field ( $E_{r}$ ) is expected to exist. Recent studies have shown that the variation of electrostatic potential on the flux surface, $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F7}_{1}$ , has significant impact on neoclassical impurity transport. Nevertheless, the effect of $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F7}_{1}$ has been studied with radially local codes and the necessity of global calculation has been suggested. Thus, we have extended a global neoclassical code, FORTEC-3D, to simulate impurity transport in an impurity hole plasma including $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F7}_{1}$ globally. Independently of the $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F7}_{1}$ effect, an electron root of the ambipolar condition for the impurity hole plasma has been found by global simulation. Hence, we have considered two different cases, each with a positive (global) and a negative (local) solution of the ambipolar condition, respectively. Our result provides another support that $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F7}_{1}$ has non-negligible impact on impurity transport. However, for the ion-root case, the radial $\text{C}^{6+}$ flux is driven further inwardly by $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F7}_{1}$ . For the electron-root case, on the other hand, the radial particle $\text{C}^{6+}$ flux is outwardly enhanced by $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F7}_{1}$ . These results indicate that how $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F7}_{1}$ affects the radial particle transport crucially depends on the profile of the ambipolar- $E_{r}$ , which is found to be susceptible to $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F7}_{1}$ itself and the global effects.

Gyrokinetic understanding of the edge pedestal transport driven by resonant magnetic perturbations in a realistic divertor geometry

Self-consistent simulations of neoclassical and electrostatic turbulent transport in a DIII-D H-mode edge plasma under resonant magnetic perturbations (RMPs) have been performed using the global total-f gyrokinetic particle-in-cell code x-point gyrokinetic code (XGC), in order to study density pump-out and electron heat confinement. The RMP field is imported from the extended magneto-hydrodynamics code M3D-C1, taking into account the linear two-fluid plasma response. With both neoclassical and turbulence physics considered together, the XGC simulation reproduces two key features of experimentally observed edge transport under RMPs: increased radial particle transport in the pedestal region that is sufficient to account for the experimental pump-out rate and suppression of the electron heat flux in the steepest part of the edge pedestal. In the simulation, the density fluctuation amplitude of modes moving in the electron diamagnetic direction increases due to interaction with RMPs in the pedestal shoulder and outward, while the electron temperature fluctuation amplitude decreases.

Burning fraction, radial transport, and steady state profiles of multi-species particles in CFETR burning plasmas

The burning fraction of fuel particles is a crucial issue for future fusion reactors. In order to achieve the high tritium burning fraction required by China Fusion Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR) engineering design, fueling depths and quantities should be estimated by particle control analysis for different scenarios. Thus, in this paper, a multi-species fluid model of deuterium-tritium (D-T) fusion plasmas is applied to study radial transport and profile evolution with CFETR parameters under different fueling conditions. In the model, alpha particles are treated with a slowing down model and diffusion coefficients are introduced according to . Then, in such a self-consistent burning plasma simulation, the results show that the fusion reaction and fueling parameters effect remarkably changes the shape of D/T profiles, while to alphas and helium ash however, the effect of the fueling parameters is much weaker. It is also seen that the burning fraction is increased substantially with the fueling depth, and significantly affected by particle confinement. Furthermore, by substantially raising the D:T ratio to the regime of above unity, the burning fraction can be increased notably, but with a cost of a certain level of fusion power reduction.

Feasibility of using reactive silicate particles with temperature-responsive coatings to enhance the security of geologic carbon storage

The large-scale deployment of geologic carbon storage will require minimizing the risk of CO2 leakage. Here we report on a novel strategy to seal leakage pathways by injecting functionalized reactive calcium silicate (CaSiO3) particles. The particles consist of a mineral silicate core within a temperature-sensitive Poly(N,N-dimethylaminoethyl methacrylate) coating that limits contact between the core and the surrounding CO2(aq) above a switching temperature making them relatively unreactive deep in the subsurface. If the CO2 leaks to shallower depths and cooler temperatures, the coatings would extend and enable the silicate core to react with CO2(aq) to form solid carbonate precipitates that reduce the permeability of the fracture or flow path. A combined laboratory- and simulation-based investigation was conducted to explore key early-stage research questions related to the feasibility of this leakage management strategy. Sand columns were injected with either coated or uncoated CaSiO3 particles and the permeability was measured before and after exposure to CO2. Experiments were conducted at 35 °C and 70 °C, a range that spans the switching temperature for the coatings. Results show that at the cooler temperature the coating effectively enabled reaction and permeability reduction. At higher temperatures, the coated particles limited mineral carbonation and the permeability decrease was minimal compared to columns with uncoated particles. The morphology and location of the precipitates provides insight about permeability evolution. Model simulations of 2D radial particle transport from an injection point provided insight into the effects of particle size, coating properties, and concentrations of particles in several representative rock formations.

On the effect of electron cyclotron waves on the evolution of neoclassical tearing modes in tokamak plasmas

In this paper we study the generation of current in a tokamak plasma in the presence of a magnetic island, using electron cyclotron (EC) waves in a process known as electron cyclotron current drive. We study some features related to the efficiency of the method, adopting a simplified model for a tokamak which incorporates the existence of a magnetic island associated with the occurrence of a neoclassical tearing mode instability. The study utilizes a self-consistent treatment of the interaction of EC waves with the plasma in the tokamak and the consequent current generation, taking into account the existence of the tokamak loop voltage and the occurrence of radial transport of particles, and also the existence of induced effects. The formalism also includes an approximate self-consistent description of the evolution of the width of the magnetic islands, which depends on the plasma current through the so-called modified Rutherford equation. The evolution of the islands depends on classical effects, which are driven mainly by the equilibrium current gradient, on neoclassical effects related to the perturbed bootstrap current and on the current generated by the radio waves. The results obtained in our numerical analyses confirm that the width of the islands can be substantially reduced by the use of EC waves, and lead to an estimate of the minimum amount of EC power required to be effective in reducing the width of magnetic islands. The results also show that, although the density of current generated by EC waves in the island region decreases along late time evolution, the total amount of plasma current is increased compared with the case in which the width of the island is assumed to remain constant.

Effect of Different Angular Momentum Transport Mechanisms on the Distribution of Water in Protoplanetary Disks

Abstract The snow line in a protoplanetary disk demarcates regions with H2O ice from regions with H2O vapor. Where a planet forms relative to this location determines how much water and other volatiles it forms with. Giant-planet formation may be triggered at the water–snow line if vapor diffuses outward and is cold-trapped beyond the snow line faster than icy particles can drift inward. In this study, we investigate the distribution of water across the snow line, considering three different radial profiles of the turbulence parameter α(r), corresponding to three different angular momentum transport mechanisms. We consider the radial transport of water vapor and icy particles by diffusion, advection, and drift. We show that even for similar values of α, the gradient of α(r) across the snow line significantly changes the snow line location, the sharpness of the volatile gradient across the snow line, and the final water/rock ratio in planetary bodies. A profile of radially decreasing α, consistent with transport by hydrodynamic instabilities plus magnetic disk winds, appears consistent with the distribution of water in the solar nebula, with monotonically increasing radial water content and a diverse population of asteroids with different water content. We argue that Σ(r) and water abundance are likely a diagnostic of α(r) and thus of the mechanism for angular momentum transport in inner disks.

Impact of Sheath Boundary Conditions and Magnetic Flutter on Evolution and Distribution of Transient Particle and Heat Fluxes in the Edge-Localized Mode Burst by Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak Simulation**Supported by the National Key R&D Program of China under Grant Nos 2017YFE0301100, 2017YFE0301101, 2017YFE0301104 and 2014GB106001, the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos 11275047, 11675217, 11505236 and 11405215,

To study the evolution and distribution of the transient particle and heat fluxes during the edge-localized modes (ELMs) burst on the experimental advanced superconducting tokamak (EAST), the BOUT++ six-field two-fluid model with sheath boundary conditions (SBCs) and magnetic flutter terms in the parallel thermal conduction is used to simulate the evolution of the profiles and growing process of the fluxes at divertor targets. Although SBCs hardly play a role in the linear phase, in the nonlinear phase both SBCs and magnetic flutter can change the dominant toroidal mode. SBCs are able to broaden the frequency distribution of the turbulence. The magnetic flutter increases the ELM size from 2.8% to 8.4%, and it doubles the amplitudes of the radial heat and particle transport coefficients at outer midplane (OMP), at around 1.0m2s−1. It is then able to increase the particle and heat flux at the divertor targets and to broaden the radial distribution of the parallel heat flux towards the targets.

Anisotropy-driven collisional separation of impurities in magnetized compressing and expanding cylindrical plasmas

When a cylindrically symmetric magnetized plasma compresses or expands, velocity-space anisotropy is naturally generated as a result of the different adiabatic conservation laws parallel and perpendicular to the magnetic field. When the compression timescale is comparable to the collision timescale, and both are much longer than the gyroperiod, this pressure anisotropy can become significant. We show that this naturally generated anisotropy can dramatically affect the transport of impurities in the compressing plasma, even in the absence of scalar temperature or density gradients, by modifying the azimuthal frictions that give rise to radial particle transport. Although the impurity transport direction depends only on the sign of the pressure anisotropy, the anisotropy itself depends on the pitch magnitude of the magnetic field and the sign of the radial velocity. Thus, pressure anisotropy effects can drive impurities either towards or away from the plasma core. These anisotropy-dependent terms represent a qualitatively new effect, influencing transport particularly in the sparse edge regions of dynamically compressing screw pinch plasmas. Such plasmas are used for both X-ray generation and magneto-inertial fusion, applications which are sensitive to impurity concentrations.

Small amplitude oscillations before the L-H transition in EAST

Before L- to H-mode transition small amplitude oscillations (SAOs), different from the widely known intermediate phase (I-phase), at a frequency of a few kilohertz can be observed on EAST. Under sufficient auxiliary heating, SAOs can transit to the H-mode or I-phase. The edge radial electric field () located inside the separatrix can be observed to deepen after bursts of SAOs. In SAOs, the turbulence level preceding the negative radial electric field and floating potential perturbation about 90° in phase, consistent with the model of zonal-flows and turbulence interaction, is measured by the Langmuir probe at the bottom of the edge well. A physical mechanism for SAOs is developed: at a critical gradient in pressure and , turbulence increases at the inboard edge of the well. The increased turbulence level enhances the radial particle, energy and momentum transport at the plasma edge and increases the amplitude of the zonal flow at the bottom of the well due to the increased Reynolds force. The increase in the zonal flow amplitude acts to mitigate the turbulence on the inboard edge of the well, driving a limit-cycle oscillation. The poloidal magnetic perturbations of the oscillations are poloidal in-out/up-down asymmetric and toroidal symmetric in the SAOs.

Towards self-consistent plasma modelisation in presence of neoclassical tearing mode and sawteeth: effects on transport coefficients

The neoclassical tearing modes (NTM) increase the effective heat and particle radial transport inside the plasma, leading to a flattening of the electron and ion temperature and density profiles at a given location depending on the safety factor q rational surface (Hegna and Callen 1997 Phys. Plasmas 4 2940). In burning plasma such as in ITER, this NTM-induced increased transport could reduce significantly the fusion performance and even lead to a disruption. Validating models describing the NTM-induced transport in present experiment is thus important to help quantifying this effect on future devices. In this work, we apply an NTM model to an integrated simulation of current, heat and particle transport on JET discharges using the European transport simulator. In this model, the heat and particle radial transport coefficients are modified by a Gaussian function locally centered at the NTM position and characterized by a full width proportional to the island size through a constant parameter adapted to obtain the best simulations of experimental profiles. In the simulation, the NTM model is turned on at the same time as the mode is triggered in the experiment. The island evolution is itself determined by the modified Rutherford equation, using self-consistent plasma parameters determined by the transport evolution. The achieved simulation reproduces the experimental measurements within the error bars, before and during the NTM. A small discrepancy is observed on the radial location of the island due to a shift of the position of the computed q = 3/2 surface compared to the experimental one. To explain such small shift (up to about 12% with respect to the position observed from the experimental electron temperature profiles), sensitivity studies of the NTM location as a function of the initialization parameters are presented. First results validate both the transport model and the transport modification calculated by the NTM model.

Formulas for Radial Transport in Protoplanetary Disks

Abstract The quantification of the radial transport of gaseous species and solid particles is important to many applications in protoplanetary disk evolution. An especially important example is determining the location of the water snow lines in a disk, which requires computing the rates of outward radial diffusion of water vapor and the inward radial drift of icy particles; however, the application is generalized to evaporation fronts of all volatiles. We review the relevant formulas using a uniform formalism. This uniform treatment is necessary because the literature currently contains at least six mutually exclusive treatments of radial diffusion of gas, only one of which is correct. We derive the radial diffusion equations from first principles using Fick's law. For completeness, we also present the equations for radial transport of particles. These equations may be applied to studies of diffusion of gases and particles in protoplanetary and other accretion disks.

Studies on radial and poloidal particle transport at the edge of SST-1 tokamak

The radial and poloidal particle fluxes occurring at the plasma edge are essential towards understanding the plasma confinement in the tokamak device. In tokamaks, the edge transport barriers play a critical role in the transitions from low confinement (L-mode) to high confinement (H-mode). Recently, the edge plasma profiles have been studied for steady-state superconducting tokamak-1 (SST-1) with the help of an array of Langmuir probes. The floating potential and ion saturation current fluctuations have been measured at different radial and poloidal distance at the edge of SST-1. Increases in magnetic fluctuations associated with enhanced magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) activities have been found to increase the radial particle flux drastically. It indicates that the MHD activity leads to anomalous particle transport during the tokamak discharge at SST-1. It is found that the average poloidal velocity decreases from ∼4 km/s to ∼3.7 km/s whereas the average radial velocity decreases from ∼7.2 km/s to 4.7 km/s. Further, during MHD activity, it is found that as the magnetic island grows, the radial electric field changes from negative to positive. It is observed that the turbulent particle flux at SST-1 tokamak is predominantly positive and bursty. The local flux probability distribution function shows a clear non-Gaussian character, and it is skewed negatively.

Electrostatic potential variation on the flux surface and its impact on impurity transport

The impurity transport in magnetically confined plasmas under some conditions finds neither quantitatively nor qualitatively a satisfactory theory-based explanation. This compromises the successful realization of thermo-nuclear fusion for energy production since impurity accumulation is known to be one of the causes that limits the plasma performance through radiative losses and plasma dilution. Under stellarator reactor-relevant conditions, accumulation is supported by the negative (inwards pointing) radial electric field which must arise to satisfy the ambipolarity constraint on the neoclassical particle fluxes. The high charge number of the impurities makes their transport particularly sensitive to the presence of electric fields and, consequently, the electrostatic potential variation on the flux surface, , which conventional neoclassical theory usually neglects, may contribute to the theoretical interpretation of experimental results not yet fully understood, e.g. Ida et al (2009 Phys. Plasmas 16 056111) and Yoshinuma et al (2009 Nucl. Fusion 49 062002).In the present work we have considered different stellarator configurations and assessed the impact that has on the radial particle transport of selected impurities. The results for LHD show that can strongly modify this transport, resulting in large deviations of the level of inward impurity flux predicted by the standard neoclassical theory in most cases. In Wendelstein 7-X, on the contrary, is significantly smaller and, for the parameters considered, its effect only appreciable for impurities with high charge number. Finally, in TJ-II the potential variation leads to appreciable changes of the impurity radial flux, although not to the extent its large amplitude might lead one to think. The dependence on the chosen parameters and open questions for future developments are discussed.

A study on the density shoulder formation in the SOL of H-mode plasmas

The term “shoulder formation” refers to an increase of the density decay length in the scrape-off layer (SOL) observed in many tokamaks during L-mode operation when a density threshold is reached. Recent experiments in ASDEX Upgrade (AUG) and JET have shown that the shoulder forms when the divertor collisionality in the divertor electrically disconnects filaments from the wall. This leads to a transition from the sheath limited to the inertial regime and to an enhancement of radial particle transport, in good agreement with analytical models. In the present work, the validity of such a mechanism is investigated in the more reactor-relevant H-mode regime. For this, a cold divertor H-mode scenario is developed in AUG using different levels of D puffing and N seeding, in which inter-ELM filaments and SOL density profiles are measured. The basic relation between filament size and divertor collisionality is still valid in H-mode plasmas, albeit an additional condition related to the gas fueling rate has been found for the formation of the shoulder.

Effects of ULF wave power on relativistic radiation belt electrons: 8–9 October 2012 geomagnetic storm

AbstractElectromagnetic ultralow‐frequency (ULF) waves are known to play a substantial role in radial transport, acceleration, and loss of relativistic particles trapped in the Earth's outer radiation belt. Using in situ observations by multiple spacecraft operating in the vicinity of outer radiation belts, we analyze the temporal and spatial behavior of ULF waves throughout the geomagnetic storm of 8–9 October 2012 and compare with the dynamics of relativistic electron fluxes on board the twin Van Allen Probes spacecraft. The analysis shows that the relativistic electron fluxes reduce from their prestorm levels during the first phase of the storm and rapidly increase during the second phase of the storm. We demonstrate that the behavior of ULF wave power changes throughout the storm, from ULF oscillations being a mixture of compressional and shear magnetic components during the first phase of the storm to ULF oscillations being dominated by transverse (shear) components during the second phase. We analyze the parameters of ULF‐driven radial diffusion throughout the storm and compare the observed diffusion coefficients with their statistical averages. We demonstrate that the observed diffusion coefficients are strong enough to impact the redistribution of relativistic electron fluxes from and to the outer boundary of radiation belts and the diffusion might influence the effects of any local electron acceleration by transporting fluxes inward or outward according to phase space density gradients.