0000000000478731
AUTHOR
R. Gatto
Fusion Burning in Magnetically Confined Toroidal Plasmas
The thermonuclear instability in a toroidal fusion burning plasma [1] is shown to manifest itself as a driving factor of modes that are radially localized around closed field lines on rational magnetic surfaces. The radial profile of the electron temperature perturbations can be of two parities: even and odd. In the first case the effective longitudinal thermal conductivity can be reduced by the effects of modes involving magnetic reconnection that have a radial transverse reconnected field with a odd (radial) profile. In the second case magnetic reconnection is shown to have a stronger effect and is characterized by reconnected transverse fields that have an even radial profile. A class of…
Three-dimensional features in burning plasmas
A next major step in the research toward magnetic fusion energy production is to carry out experimental campaigns exploring regimes with relevant amount of fusion power. So far, the theoretical knowledge of the path toward a fusion burning plasma has been acquired mainly by performing numerical studies in 0 or 1-1.5 dimensions. Due to the marked anisotropy of magnetically confined plasmas, however, three-dimensional effects might play a role. In particular, the drastic change in magnetic topology associated with reconnecting modes on selected rational magnetic surfaces [1] may decrease the thermal electron conductivity parallel to the magnetic field lines, with a consequent impact on the el…