Neoclassical Currents in the Wisconsin Levitated Octupole

摘要

Neoclassical transport theory predicts the existence of bootstrap current in collisionless plasmas with a significant population of trapped particles. This unidirectional current flows along field lines, and is generated by the balancing of ion-electron friction forces with the viscous forces between trapped and untrapped like particles. The current is driven by gradients in the plasma pressure and temperature. Previous work has identified the existence of bootstrap current in the Wisconsin Levitated Octupole, and this discovery of bootstrap current in the octupole naturally leads to the question of why previous experiments were unsuccessful in their endeavors to identify this current. The original motivation for this thesis was to address that question, by investigating the effects on bootstrap current caused by ohmic currents, plasma fluctuations, and rf fields. Ohmic currents, while naturally present in tokamaks, can be introduced in the octupole, independent of the usual operating procedure, and can be adjusted to be of the same order of magnitude as the expected diamagnetic and parallel currents. The interaction, if any, of bootstrap current and ohmic current can thus be determined without the problem of a large ohmic current masking the neoclassical current. Rf fields can be driven in the octupole plasma with little or no plasma heating. Any anomalous effects on the parallel currents, due to the existence of the rf fields, can then be determined. This thesis consists of four parts: the experimental apparatus and the plasma diagnostics used in these studies; the general theory of neoclassical currents (excluding field errors) and how it is applied to the octupole; the experimental results of this investigation; and a brief discussion of the conclusions that can be inferred from the data. (ERA citation 12:050876)