Quantifying self-organization in fusion plasmas

Abstract

A multifaceted framework for understanding self-organization in fusion plasma dynamics is presented which concurrently manages several important issues related to the nonlinear and multiscale phenomena involved, namely,(1) it chooses the optimal template wavelet for the analysis of temporal or spatio-temporal plasma dynamics, (2) it detects parameter values at which bifurcations occur, (3) it quantifies complexity and self-organization, (4) it enables short-term prediction of nonlinear dynamics, and (5) it extracts coherent structures in turbulence by separating them from the incoherent component. The first two aspects including the detection of changes in the dynamics of a nonlinear system are illustrated by analyzing Stimulated Raman Scattering in a bounded, weakly dissipative plasma. Self-organization in the fusion plasma is quantitatively analyzed based on the numerical simulations of the Gyrokinetic-Vlasov (GKV) model of plasma dynamics. The parameters for the standard and inward shifted magnetic configurations, relevant for the Large Helical Device, were used in order to quantitatively compare self-organization and complexity in the two configurations. Finally, self-organization is analyzed for three different confinement regimes of the MAST device.