Steady-state flows in a visco-resistive magnetohydrodynamic model of tokamak plasmas with inhomogeneous heating

E Roverc'H (1) , H Oueslati (2, 3) , M.-C Firpo

1 ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris
2 LPP - Laboratoire de Physique des Plasmas
3 UTM - Université de Tunis El Manar

The axisymmetric visco-resistive magnetohydrodynamic steady states allowing flows (i.e. non-vanishing velocity fields) are computed for a toroidal JET-like geometry. It is shown that a spatially inhomogeneous heating of moderate magnitude leads to an increase of typical toroidal speeds with respect to the situation with uniform temperature with identical mean Hartmann numbers. A symmetry argument is introduced to capture the symmetry breaking, induced by the temperature gradient, that produces a net toroidal plasma flow.

Domaines: Physique des plasmas [physics.plasm-ph]; Science non linéaire [physics]

E Roverc'H, H Oueslati, M.-C Firpo. Steady-state flows in a visco-resistive magnetohydrodynamic model of tokamak plasmas with inhomogeneous heating. Journal of Plasma Physics, 2021. ⟨hal-02997408v3⟩