Direct Numerical Simulations of Two-Fluid Plasma Turbulence

Abstract
Electromagnetic turbulence thought to be responsible for anomalous transport in magnetic confinement devices such as tokamaks is very complicated, involving a multitude of physical processes, length and time-scales. It cannot be investigated by traditional linear theories any more than aerodynamic fluid turbulence. The relatively longer wavelength (k_⊥p_i<<1), low frequency (ω≈ω*<<ω_ci) drift-type modes are, however, susceptible to a direct numerical solution approach pioneered in the case of fluid turbulence by Orszag and Patera. A substantial two-fluid nonlinear code called CUTIE has been developed at Culham in recent years to study the nonlinear saturation and transport consequences of electromagnetic drift wave turbulence in simplified tokamak geometry. This development and some results obtained using such a model are briefly described in this contribution.