Kinetic estimate of the shielding of resonant magnetic field perturbations by the plasma in DIII-D

Abstract

Effects of linear plasma response currents on non-axisymmetric magnetic field perturbations from the I-coil used for edge localized mode mitigation in DIII-D tokamak are analysed with the help of a kinetic plasma response model developed for cylindrical geometry. It is shown that these currents eliminate the ergodization of the magnetic field in the core plasma and reduce the size of the ergodic layer at the edge. A simple balance model is proposed which qualitatively reproduces the evolution of the plasma parameters in the pedestal region with the onset of the perturbation. It is suggested that the experimentally observed density pump-out effect in the long mean free path regime is the result of a combined action of ion orbit losses and magnetic field ergodization at the edge.