Self-organization of electrostatic turbulence in a cylindrical plasma

Abstract

On the basis of theory and computer simulations we show that electrostatic turbulence in a cylindrical plasma with magnetic shear and curvature self-organizes to form a macroscopic potential \ensuremath{\varphi} which depends only on the radial coordinate r and is given by \ensuremath{\varphi}(r)\ensuremath{\simeq}${\mathrm{J}}_{0}$(pr)+${\mathrm{C}}_{1}$${\mathrm{r}}^{2}$+${\mathrm{C}}_{2}$ where ${\mathrm{C}}_{1}$ and ${\mathrm{C}}_{2}$ are functions of a constant p. A unique feature of the potential is the existence of a coaxial \ensuremath{\varphi}(${\mathrm{r}}_{0}$)=0 surface at ${\mathrm{r}}_{0}$\ensuremath{\simeq}0.7a, where a is the radius of the cylinder. This surface is found to be fairly rigid and is considered to inhibit radial particle transport.