PPPL-4727

Understanding Disruptions In Tokamaks

Authors: Leonid E. Zakharov, Sergei A. Galkin and Sergei N. Gerasimov

Abstract:
This paper describes progress achieved since 2007 in understanding disruptions in tokamaks, when the effect of plasma current sharing with the wall was introduced into theory. As a result, the toroidal asymmetry of the plasma current measurements during vertical disruption event (VDE) on the Joint European Torus (JET) was explained. A new kind of plasma equilibria and mode coupling was introduced into theory, which can explain the duration of the external kink mode 1/1 during VDE. The paper is illustrated by first results of numerical simulations using a free boundary plasma model, relevant to disruptions.
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Submitted to: Physics of Plasmas (January 2012)

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Download PPPL-4727 (pdf 2.06 MB 18 pp)
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