Turbulent Transport and Heating of Trace Heavy Ions in Hot Magnetized Plasmas

M. Barnes, F. I. Parra, and W. Dorland

Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 185003 – Published 31 October 2012

Abstract

Scaling laws for the transport and heating of trace heavy ions in low-frequency magnetized plasma turbulence are derived and compared with direct numerical simulations. The predicted dependences of turbulent fluxes and heating on ion charge and mass number are found to agree with numerical results for both stationary and differentially rotating plasmas. Heavy ion momentum transport is found to increase with mass, and heavy ions are found to be preferentially heated, implying a mass-dependent ion temperature for very weakly collisional plasmas and for partially ionized heavy ions in strongly rotating plasmas.

Received 20 July 2012

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.185003

Authors & Affiliations

M. Barnes^1,2,*, F. I. Parra¹, and W. Dorland³

¹Plasma Science and Fusion Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA
²Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831, USA
³Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20740, USA