K. Miyamoto – Plasma Physics and Controlled Nuclear Fusion (Second edition, 2016)

Автор: K. Miyamoto
Название книги: Plasma Physics and Controlled Nuclear Fusion (Second edition)
Формат: PDF
Жанр: Физика
Страницы: 495
Качество: Изначально компьютерное, E-book

The worldwide effort to develop the fusion process as a new energy source has been
going on for about a half century and has made remarkable progress. Now construction
stage of “International Tokamak Experimental Reactor”, called ITER,
already started. Primary objective of this textbook is to present a basic knowledge
for the students to study plasma physics and controlled fusion researches and to
provide the recent aspect of new results.
Chapter 1 describes the basic concept of plasma and its characteristics. The
orbits of ion and electron are analyzed in various configurations of magnetic field in
Chap. 2.
From Chap. 3 to Chap. 7, plasmas are treated as magnetohydrodynamic
(MHD) fluid. MHD equation of motion (Chap. 3), equilibrium (Chap. 4), and
confinement of plasma in ideal cases (Chap. 5) are described by the fluid model.
Chapters 6 and 7 discuss problems of MHD instabilities whether a small perturbation
will grow to disrupt the plasma or will damp to a stable state. The basic
MHD equation of motion can be derived by taking an appropriate average of
Boltzmann equation. This mathematical process is described in Appendix A. The
derivation of useful energy integral formula of axisymmetric toroidal system and
the analysis of high n ballooning mode are introduced in Appendix B.
From Chap. 8 to Chap. 13, plasmas are treated by kinetic theory. Boltzmann’s
equation is introduced in Chap. 8. This equation is the starting point of the kinetic
theory. Plasmas, as mediums in which waves and perturbations propagate, are
generally inhomogeneous and anisotropic. It may absorb or even amplify the wave
and perturbations.
Cold plasma model described in Chap. 9 is applicable when the thermal velocity
of plasma particles is much smaller than the phase velocity of wave. Because of its
simplicity, the dielectric tensor of cold plasma can be easily derived and the
properties of various waves can be discussed in the case of cold plasma.
If the refractive index of plasma becomes large and the phase velocity of the
wave becomes comparable to the thermal velocity of the plasma particles, then the
particles and the waves interact with each other. Chapter 10 describes Landau damping, which is the most important and characteristic collective phenomenon of
plasma. Waves in hot plasma, in which the wave phase velocity is comparable to
the thermal velocity of particles, are analyzed by use of dielectric tensor of hot
plasma. Wave heating (wave absorption) in hot plasmas and current drives are
described in Chap. 11. Non-inductive current drives combined with bootstrap
current are essential in order to operate tokamak in steady state condition.
Instabilities driven by energetic particles (fishbone instability and toroidal
Alfvén eigenmodes) are treated in Chap. 12. In order to minimize the loss of alpha
particle produced by fusion grade plasma, it is important to avoid the instabilities
driven by energetic particles and alpha particles.
Chapter 13 discusses the plasma transport by turbulence. Losses of plasmas with
drift turbulence become Bohm type or gyro Bohm type depending on different
magnetic configuration. Analysis of confinement by computer simulations is greatly
advanced. Gyrokinetic particle model and full orbit particle model are introduced.
Furthermore it is confirmed recently that the zonal flow is generated in plasmas by
drift turbulence. Understanding of the zonal flow drive and damping has suggested
several routes to improving confinement. Those new topics are included in Chap. 13.
In Chap. 14, confinement researches toward fusion plasmas are reviewed.
During the last two decades, tokamak experiments have made a remarkable progress.
Chapter 15 introduces research works of critical subjects on tokamak plasmas
and the aims of ITER and its rationale are explained. Chapter 16 explains reversed
field pinch including PPCD (pulsed parallel current drive), and Chap. 17 introduces
the experimental results of advanced stellarator devices and several types of
quasi-symmetric stellarator. Boozer equation to formulate the drift motion of particles
is explained in Appendix C. Chapter 18 describes open-end systems including
tandem mirrors. Elementary introduction of inertial confinement including the fast
ignition is added in Chap. 19.
Readers may have an impression that there is too much mathematics in this
book. However, it is one of motivation to write this text to save the time to struggle
with the mathematical deduction of theoretical results so that students could spend
more time to think physics of experimental results.
This textbook has been attempted to present the basic physics and analytical
methods comprehensively which are necessary for understanding and predicting
plasma behavior and to provide the recent status of fusion researches for graduate
and senior undergraduate students. I also hope that it will be a useful reference for
scientists and engineers working in the relevant fields.