2024/09/25 by Yannis Antonenas, Antonenas, Y., G. Anastassiou +3 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Atomic and Molecular Physics #Chaotic Dynamics (nlin.CD) #Dust and Plasma Wave Phenomena #FOS: Physical sciences #Magnetic confinement fusion research #Plasma Physics (physics.plasm-ph)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2409.16980
openalex publication_date 2024/09/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Symmetry-breaking perturbations in axisymmetric toroidal plasma configurations have a drastic impact on particle, energy, and momentum transport in fusion devices, thereby affecting their confinement properties. The perturbative modes strongly affect particles with specific kinetic characteristics through resonant mode-particle interactions. In this work we present an analytical calculation of the kinetic q factor enabling the identification of particles with kinetic properties that meet the resonant conditions. This allows us to predict the locations and structures of the corresponding resonant island-chains, as well as the existence of transport barriers in the particle phase space. The analytical results, derived for the case of a large aspect ratio configuration, are systematically compared to numerical simulations, and their domain of validity is thoroughly investigated and explained. Our findings demonstrate that calculating the kinetic q factor and its dependence on both particle and magnetic field characteristics, provides a valuable tool for understanding and predicting the resonant plasma response to non-axisymmetric perturbations. Moreover, this approach can be semi-analytically applied to generic realistic experimental equilibria, offering a low-computational-cost method for scenario investigations under various multiscale perturbative modes.