Transition to supersonic flows in the edge plasma

Philippe Ghendrih (1) , K. Bodi (2) , Hugo Bufferand (2) , Guillaume Chiavassa (2) , Guido Ciraolo (2) , Nicolas Fedorczak (1) , Livia Isoardi (2) , A. Paredes (2) , Yanick Sarazin (1) , Eric Serre (2) , Frédéric Schwander (2) , Patrick Tamain (1)

1 IRFM - Institut de Recherche sur la Fusion par confinement Magnétique
2 M2P2 - Laboratoire de Mécanique, Modélisation et Procédés Propres

With a proper choice of a single dimensionless control parameter one describes the transition between subsonic and supersonic flows as a bifurcation. The bifurcation point is characterized by specific properties of the control parameter: the control parameter has a vanishing derivative in space and takes the maximum possible value equal to 1. This method is then applied to the sheath plasma with constant temperatures, allowing one to recover the Bohm boundary condition as well as the location of the point where the bifurcation takes place. This analysis is extended to fronts, rarefaction waves and divertor plasmas. Two cases are found, those where departure from quasineutrality is mandatory to generate a maximum in the variation of the control parameter (sheath and fronts) and those where the physics of the quasineutral plasma can generate such a maximum (rarefaction waves and supersonic flow in divertors). The conditions that are required to recover the Bohm condition, when modelling the wall using the penalization technique, are also addressed and generalized.

Domaines: Mécanique des fluides [physics.class-ph]; Mécanique des fluides [physics.class-ph]

Philippe Ghendrih, K. Bodi, Hugo Bufferand, Guillaume Chiavassa, Guido Ciraolo, et al.. Transition to supersonic flows in the edge plasma. Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion, 2011, 53 (5), pp.054019. ⟨10.1088/0741-3335/53/5/054019⟩. ⟨hal-00848545⟩