Kinetic ballooning modes as a constraint on plasma triangularity in commercial spherical tokamaks

TY - JOUR

T1 - Kinetic ballooning modes as a constraint on plasma triangularity in commercial spherical tokamaks

AU - Davies, R.

AU - Dickinson, D.

AU - Wilson, H.

N1 - © 2022 The Author(s)

PY - 2022/8/19

Y1 - 2022/8/19

N2 - To be economically competitive, spherical tokamak (ST) power plant designs require a high β (plasma pressure/magnetic pressure) and sufficiently low turbulent transport to enable steady-state operation. A novel approach to tokamak optimisation is for the plasma to have negative triangularity, with experimental results indicating this reduces transport. However, negative triangularity is known to close access to the 'second stability' region for ballooning modes, and thus impose a hard β limit. Second stability access is particularly important in ST power plant design, and this raises the question as to whether negative triangularity is feasible. A linear gyrokinetic study of three hypothetical high β ST equilibria is performed, with similar size and fusion power in the range 500-800 MW. By closing the second stability window, the negative triangularity case becomes strongly unstable to long-wavelength kinetic ballooning modes (KBMs) across the plasma, likely driving unacceptably high transport. By contrast, positive triangularity can completely avoid the ideal ballooning unstable region whilst having reactor-relevant β, provided the on-axis safety factor is sufficiently high. Nevertheless, the dominant instability at long wavelength still appears to be the KBM, though it could be stabilised by flow shear.

AB - To be economically competitive, spherical tokamak (ST) power plant designs require a high β (plasma pressure/magnetic pressure) and sufficiently low turbulent transport to enable steady-state operation. A novel approach to tokamak optimisation is for the plasma to have negative triangularity, with experimental results indicating this reduces transport. However, negative triangularity is known to close access to the 'second stability' region for ballooning modes, and thus impose a hard β limit. Second stability access is particularly important in ST power plant design, and this raises the question as to whether negative triangularity is feasible. A linear gyrokinetic study of three hypothetical high β ST equilibria is performed, with similar size and fusion power in the range 500-800 MW. By closing the second stability window, the negative triangularity case becomes strongly unstable to long-wavelength kinetic ballooning modes (KBMs) across the plasma, likely driving unacceptably high transport. By contrast, positive triangularity can completely avoid the ideal ballooning unstable region whilst having reactor-relevant β, provided the on-axis safety factor is sufficiently high. Nevertheless, the dominant instability at long wavelength still appears to be the KBM, though it could be stabilised by flow shear.

KW - kinetic ballooning mode

KW - negative triangularity

KW - plasma microinstability

KW - positive triangularity

KW - spherical tokamak

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85136135308&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1088/1361-6587/ac8615

DO - 10.1088/1361-6587/ac8615

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85136135308

SN - 0741-3335

VL - 64

JO - Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion

JF - Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion

IS - 10

M1 - 105001

ER -