HR: 0800h
AN: SM51B-0359    [Abstracts]
TI: Gyrokinetic Stability of Z-pinch and Dipole-like Configurations
AU: Rogers, B N
EM: barrett.rogers@dartmouth.edu
AF: Dartmout College, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Hanover, NH 03755 United States
AU: * Ricci, P
EM: paolo.ricci@dartmouth.edu
AF: Dartmout College, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Hanover, NH 03755 United States
AU: Dorland, W
EM: bdorland@physics.umd.edu
AF: University of Maryland, Department of Physics, College Park, MD 20742 United States
AB: In this work we explore the kinetic stability of Z-pinch and dipole-like plasma geometries. In an effort to model configurations ranging from the Earth's magnetosphere to the MIT Levitated Dipole Experiment (LDX), we consider a variety of collisionality regimes, plasma beta values, and along-the-field-line boundary conditions. Our study uses the nonlinear gyrokinetic code GS2 as well as various analytic methods. GS2 is an Eulerian, electromagnetic, kinetic plasma turbulence code that is widely used in the magnetic confinement fusion program. It simulates the nonlinear Frieman-Chen gyrokinetic equations [E. Frieman and L. Chen, ``Nonlinear Gyrokinetic Equations for Low-Frequency Electromagnetic Waves in General Plasma Equilibria", Phys. Fluids, Vol. 25, 502 (1982)] , which describe the evolution of 5D distribution functions for each plasma species (including self-consistent Maxwell's equations) for processes slow compared to the inverse ion cyclotron frequency. The two velocity space coordinates are energy and magnetic moment, which are conserved quantities at these frequencies. Trapping of the particles in magnetic wells is also included.
DE: 7827 Kinetic and MHD theory
DE: 7843 Numerical simulation studies
DE: 7871 Waves and instabilities
DE: 2753 Numerical modeling
SC: SPA-Magnetospheric Physics [SM]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting