On beat-driven and spontaneous excitations of zonal flows by drift waves

2024/02/12 by Liu Chen, Zhiyong Qiu, Chen, Liu +3 · 2 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Engineering · #FOS: Physical sciences #Fluid Dynamics and Turbulent Flows #Meteorological Phenomena and Simulations #Oceanographic and Atmospheric Processes #Plasma Physics (physics.plasm-ph)

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2402.07399

openalex publication_date 2024/02/12 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01

Abstract

Using the slab plasma as a paradigm model, we have derived analytically equations for the nonlinear generation of zero-frequency zonal flows by electron drift waves including, on the same footing, both the beat-driven and spontaneous excitations. It is found that the beat-driven zonal flow tends to reduce the frequency mismatch between the electron drift waves and, thereby, contributes to a significant O(1) enhancement of the modulational instability drive and lowering its threshold. Implications to tokamaks plasmas as well as drift-wave soliton formation are also discussed.

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