Research Interests

Currently, my research work focuses on cross-field transport of heat, particles and momentum in tokamak plasmas, and more precisely on the interpretation of the dependences observed in the experiments in the frame of the gyro-kinetic theory.

Recent publications

Y. Camenen, A.G. Peeters, C. Angioni, F.J. Casson, W.A. Hornsby, A.P. Snodin, D. Strintzi
Intrinsic rotation driven by the electrostatic turbulence in up-down asymmetric plasmas
Phys. Plasmas 16, 062501 (2009)

The transport of parallel momentum by small scale fluctuations is intrinsically linked to symmetry breaking in the direction of the magnetic field. In tokamaks, an up-down asymmetry in the equilibrium proves to be an efficient parallel symmetry breaking mechanism leading to the generation of a net radial flux of parallel momentum by the electrostatic turbulence [Y. Camenen
et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 125001 2009]. This flux is neither proportional to the toroidal rotation nor to its gradient and arises from an incomplete cancellation of the local contributions to the
parallel momentum flux under the flux surface average. The flux of parallel momentum then depends on the asymmetry of the curvature drift and on the extension of the fluctuations around the
low field side midplane. In this paper, the mechanisms underlying the generation of the flux of parallel momentum are highlighted and the main dependences on plasma parameters investigated
using linear gyrokinetic simulations.

Y. Camenen, A.G. Peeters, C. Angioni, F.J. Casson, W.A. Hornsby, A.P. Snodin, D. Strintzi
Transport of parallel momentum induced by current-symmetry breaking in toroidal plasmas
Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 125001 (2009)

The symmetry of a physical system strongly impacts on its properties. In toroidal plasmas, the symmetry along a magnetic field line usually constrains the radial flux of parallel momentum to zero
in the absence of background flows. By breaking the up-down symmetry of the toroidal currents, this constraint can be relaxed. The parallel asymmetry in the magnetic configuration then leads to an incomplete cancellation of the turbulent momentum flux across a flux surface. The magnitude of the subsequent toroidal rotation increases with the up-down asymmetry and its sign depends on the direction of the toroidal magnetic field and plasma current. Such a mechanism offers new insights in the interpretation and control of the intrinsic toroidal rotation in present day experiments.

Y. Camenen, A.G. Peeters, C. Angioni, F.J. Casson, W.A. Hornsby, A.P. Snodin, D. Strintzi
Impact of the background toroidal rotation on particle and heat turbulent transport in tokamak plasmas
Phys. Plasmas 16, 012503 (2009)

Recent developments in the gyrokinetic theory have shown that, in a toroidal device, the Coriolis drift associated with the background plasma rotation significantly affects the small scale instabilities [A. G. Peeters et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 265003 (2007)]. The later study, which focuses on the effect of the Coriolis drift on toroidal momentum transport is extended in the present paper to heat and particle transport. It is shown numerically using the gyrokinetic flux-tube code GKW [A. G. Peeters and D. Strintzi, Phys. Plasmas 11, 3748 (2004)], and supported analytically, that the Coriolis drift and the parallel dynamics play a similar role in the coupling of density, temperature, and velocity perturbations. The effect on particle and heat fluxes increases with the toroidal rotation (directly) and with the toroidal rotation gradient (through the parallel mode structure), depends on the direction of propagation of the perturbation, increases with the impurity charge number and with the impurity mass to charge number ratio. The case of very high toroidal rotation, relevant to spherical tokamaks, is investigated by including the effect of the centrifugal force in a fluid model. The main effect of the centrifugal force is to decrease the local density gradient at the low field side midplane and to add an extra contribution to the fluxes. The conditions for which the inertial terms significantly affect the heat and particle fluxes are evidenced.

A full list of publications can be found here

Office: PS.120

Telephone:
+44 (0) 2476 573874

Fax:
+44 (0) 2476 523672

Email:
y.camenen@warwick.ac.uk