Mechanism of transport in symplectic maps applied to magnetic confined plasmas

• Grant number: 23/10521-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Post-doctor
• Start date: November 01, 2023
• End date: January 31, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Physics - Physics of Fluids, Plasma Physics and Electrical Discharge
• Principal Investigator: Iberê Luiz Caldas
• Grantee: Michele Mugnaine
• Supervisor: Philip James Morrison Jr.
• Host Institution: Instituto de Física (IF). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: University of Texas at Austin (UT), United States
• Associated to the scholarship: 22/12736-0 - Oscillations in magnetically confined plasmas, BP.PD

Abstract

Symplectic maps are a useful tool to describe the behavior of magnetic field lines in plasmas confined within toroidal devices like Tokamaks. The efficiency of Tokamaks are inherently tied to the confinement improvement, which can be achieved by the transport barriers within the plasma and by the chaotic region formed on the edge by the employment of magnetic limiters. Both the barriers and the chaotization of the peripheral field lines can be described by Hamiltonian maps, as the Standard Nontwist Map, the Martin-Taylor map, the tokamap and its variations. In order to understand the scenarios with high plasma confinement, the analysis of the existence of transport barriers and their eventual breakup will inform us about the best configurations for better efficiency. In this project, we intend to study the behavior of the barriers and the emergence of transport (loss of chaotic field lines) by means of Hamiltonian maps. We aspire to determine the critical values of the control parameters for when the confinement is worsened and to provide a dynamical characterization for the emerging transport in the system. (AU)