Semi-Local Kinetic Analysis of the Toroidal Ion Temperature Gradient Mode

摘要

In analyzing linear stability of plasma modes, the local approximation continuesto be a useful method for making at least qualitative estimates of growth rates. The accuracy of this approximation improves if the norms of all differential operators are close to the exact values. A semi-local kinetic analysis is presented of the growth rate of the toroidal ion temperature gradient mode in tokamaks, with differential norms based on a simple eigenfunction. The semi-local kinetic dispersion relation is shown to yield growth rates in quantitative as well as qualitative agreement with the rigorous integral equation formulation.