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arXiv · 2602.19527

Friction-induced scale-selection in the extended Cahn-Hilliard model for zonal staircase

M. Leconte·T. S. Hahm
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Abstract

In this work, we describe a possible mechanism to set the radial scale of zonal flows, which may be applicable to the $E \times B$ staircase found in the global full-f simulations such as [G. Dif-Pradalier et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 085004 (2015)]. 1D numerical simulation results of the Cahn-Hilliard model - extended to include zonal flow friction - can be understood from a heuristic nonlinear analysis. The staircase step-size $\Delta$ is found to decrease as the dimensionless zonal flow friction $\mu$ increases. It scales like $\Delta \sim \log \mu^\alpha$, with $\alpha \simeq -0.41$, up to a constant offset.

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M. Leconte, T. S. Hahm. 2026-02-23. Friction-induced scale-selection in the extended Cahn-Hilliard model for zonal staircase. https://doi.org/10.1103/n1wb-jnzd

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