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Anders Henry Nielsen

Publications and source records attributed to Anders Henry Nielsen.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

Collisional transport across the magnetic field in drift-fluid models

Drift ordered fluid models are widely applied in studies of low-frequency turbulence in the edge and scrape-off layer regions of magnetically confined plasmas. Here, we show how collisional transport across the magnetic field is self-consistently incorporated into drift-fluid models without altering the drift-fluid energy integral. We demonstrate that the inclusion of collisional transport in drift-fluid models gives rise to diffusion of particle density, momentum and pressures in drift-fluid turbulence models and thereby obviate the customary use of artificial diffusion in turbulence simulations. We further derive a computationally efficient, two-dimensional model which can be time integrated for several turbulence de-correlation times using only limited computational resources. The model describes interchange turbulence in a two-dimensional plane perpendicular to the magnetic field located at the outboard midplane of a tokamak. The model domain has two regions modeling open and closed field lines. The model employs a computational expedient model for collisional transport. Numerical simulations show good agreement between the full and the simplified model for collisional transport.

physics.plasm-ph↗

Intermittent transport in edge plasmas

The properties of low-frequency convective fluctuations and transport are investigated for the boundary region of magnetized plasmas. We employ a two-dimensional fluid model for the evolution of the global plasma quantities in a geometry and with parameters relevant to the scrape-off layer of confined toroidal plasmas. Strongly intermittent plasma transport is regulated by self-consistently generated sheared poloidal flows and is mediated by bursty ejection of particles and heat from the bulk plasma in the form of blobs. Coarse grained probe signals reveal a highly skewed and flat distribution on short time scales, but tends towards a normal distribution at large time scales. Conditionally averaged signals are in perfect agreement with experimental measurements.

physics.plasm-ph↗

Statistical properties of transport in plasma turbulence

The statistical properties of the $E \times B$ flux in different types of plasma turbulence simulations are investigated using probability density distribution functions (PDF). The physics included in the models ranges from two dimensional drift-wave turbulence to three dimensional MHD simulations. The PDFs of the flux surface averaged transport are in good agreement with an extreme value distribution (EVD). This is interpreted as a signature of localized vortical structures dominating the transport on a flux surface. Models accounting for a local input of energy and including the global evolution of background profiles show a more bursty behavior in 2D as well as 3D simulations of interchange and drift type turbulence. Although the PDFs are not Gaussian, again no algebraic tails are observed. The tails are, in all cases considered, in excellent agreement with EVDs.

physics.plasm-ph↗