Journal of Plasma Physics
- Journal of Plasma Physics / Volume 77 / Issue 04 / August 2011, pp 559-569
- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011
- DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0022377810000735 (About DOI), Published online: 06 January 2011
Papers
Numerical study of precession of circulating particles in tokamaks
O. S. BURDOa1, YA. I. KOLESNICHENKOa1, S. SIPILÄa2 and YU. V. YAKOVENKOa1
a1 Institute for Nuclear Research, Prospekt Nauky 47, Kyiv, Ukraine (o_bourdeaux@ukr.net)
a2 Aalto University, Department of Applied Physics, P.O. Box 14100, Aalto, Finland
Abstract
The toroidal precession of circulating particles in tokamaks is studied numerically. The dependence of the precession frequency on the magnetic shear, the elongation of the plasma cross-section, and plasma pressure is investigated. It is concluded that the analytical expressions for the precession frequency by Kolesnichenko et al. (2003 Phys. Plasmas 10, 1449–1457) represent a reasonable approximation for the limit cases of tokamaks with circular cross-section and shearless tokamaks with elliptical cross-section. The precession frequency was calculated for non-circular tokamaks with magnetic shear. Based on the numerical results, an interpolation formula for the precession frequency is proposed.
(Received November 03 2010)
(Accepted December 02 2010)
(Online publication January 06 2011)
