Toroidal self-consistent modeling of drift kinetic effects on the resistive wall mode

TLDR

The study develops a self‑consistent kinetic model to investigate resistive wall mode stability in toroidal plasmas. The model is benchmarked against perturbative approaches, revealing that kinetic modifications to mode stability depend on plasma configuration. Both stabilizing and destabilizing kinetic effects are observed, with the nonperturbative self‑consistent approach generally predicting less stabilization than perturbative models.

Abstract

A self-consistent kinetic model is developed to study the stability of the resistive wall mode in toroidal plasmas. This model is compared with other models based on perturbative approaches. The degree of the kinetic modification to the stability of the mode depends on the plasma configurations. Both stabilizing and destabilizing kinetic effects are observed. The nonperturbative approach, with a self-consistent inclusion of the eigenfunctions and the eigenvalues of the resistive wall mode, normally finds less stabilization than the perturbative approach.