PPPL-3927 is available in pdf format (832 KB).

Hamiltonian Description of Convective-cell Generation

Authors: J.A. Krommes and R.A. Kolesnikov

Date of PPPL Report: March 2004

Published in: Physics of Plasmas 11:6 (June 2004) L29-L32

The nonlinear statistical growth rate λq for convective cells driven by drift-wave (DW) interactions is studied with the aid of a covariant Hamiltonian formalism for the gyrofluid nonlinearities. A statistical energy theorem is proven that relates λq to a second functional tensor derivative of the DW energy. This generalizes to a wide class of systems of coupled partial differential equations a previous result for scalar dynamics. Applications to (i) electrostatic ion-temperature-gradient-driven modes at small ion temperature, and (ii) weakly electromagnetic collisional DW's are noted.