PPPL-3378 is available in pdf or postscript formats.

Excitation of Zonal Flow by Drift Waves in Toroidal Plasmas

Authors: Liu Chen, Zhihong Lin, and Roscoe White

Date of PPPL Report: November 1999

NOTE: Revised version dated November 22, 1999

Published in: Phys. Plasmas 7 (August 2000) 3129-3132. (Note: Authors changed to: L. Chen, Z.H. Lin, and R. White.)

An analytical dispersion relation is derived which shows that, in toroidal plasmas, zonal flows can be spontaneously excited via modulations in the radial envelope of a single-n coherent drift wave, with n the toroidal mode number. Predicted instability features are verified by 3D global gyrokinetic simulations of the ion-temperature-gradient mode. Nonlinear equations for mode amplitudes demonstrate saturation of the linearly unstable pump wave and bursting behaviour in the drift-wave intensity and zonal flows.