Nonlinear Saturation of the Dissipative Trapped-Electron Instability

Abstract

It is shown that trapped-electron-induced scattering can be dominant over nonlinear ion Landau damping in the saturation of short-wavelength, dispersive, trapped-electron instabilities in tokamaks. Trapped-electron-induced scattering transfers the wave energy to shorter wavelengths, where it can be dissipated by ion viscosity.