On electromagnetic turbulence and transport in STEP

Abstract

In this work, we present first-of-their-kind nonlinear local gyrokinetic simulations of electromagnetic turbulence at mid-radius in the burning plasma phase of the conceptual high-$\beta$, reactor-scale, tight-aspect-ratio tokamak STEP (Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production). A prior linear analysis in D. Kennedy et al. 2023 Nucl. Fusion 63 126061 reveals the presence of unstable hybrid kinetic ballooning modes, where inclusion of the compressional magnetic field fluctuation, $\delta B_{\parallel }$, is crucial, and subdominant microtearing modes are found at binormal scales approaching the ion-Larmor radius. Local nonlinear gyrokinetic simulations on the selected surface in the central core region suggest that hybrid kinetic ballooning modes can drive large turbulent transport, and that there is negligible turbulent transport from subdominant microtearing modes when hybrid kinetic ballooning modes are artificially suppressed (through the omission of $\delta B_{\parallel }$). Nonlinear simulations that include perpendicular equilibrium flow shear can saturate at lower fluxes that are more consistent with the available sources in STEP. This analysis suggests that hybrid kinetic ballooning modes could play an important role in setting the turbulent transport in STEP, and possible mechanisms to mitigate turbulent transport are discussed. Increasing the safety factor or the pressure gradient strongly reduces turbulent transport from hybrid kinetic ballooning modes in the cases considered here. Challenges of simulating electromagnetic turbulence in this high-$\beta$ regime are highlighted. In particular the observation of radially extended turbulent structures in the absence of equilibrium flow shear motivates future advanced global gyrokinetic simulations that include $\delta B_{\parallel }$.

References in corpus (10)

• Kinetic instabilities that limit β in the edge of a tokamak plasma: a picture of an H-mode pedestal
• Gyrokinetic analysis and simulation of pedestals, to identify the culprits for energy losses using fingerprints
• Linearized model Fokker-Planck collision operators for gyrokinetic simulations. II. Numerical implementation and tests
• Microtearing modes as the source of magnetic fluctuations in the JET pedestal
• Flat-top plasma operational space of the STEP power plant
• Electromagnetic gyrokinetic instabilities in STEP
• Ion-scale turbulence in MAST: anomalous transport, subcritical transitions, and comparison to BES measurements
• Linear gyrokinetic stability of a high $\beta$ non-inductive spherical tokamak
• Nonlinear microtearing modes in MAST and their stochastic layer formation
• Microtearing turbulence saturation via electron temperature flattening at low-order rational surfaces

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Flat-top plasma operational space of the STEP power plant
• A quasi-linear model of electromagnetic turbulent transport and its application to flux-driven transport predictions for STEP
• Three-dimensional boundary turbulence simulations of a RFX-mod plasma in the presence of voltage biasing
• The gyrokinetic field invariant and electromagnetic temperature-gradient instabilities in `good-curvature' plasmas