Sheared rotation effects on kinetic stability in enhanced confinement tokamak plasmas, and nonlinear dynamics of fluctuations and flows in axisymmetric plasmas

Sheared rotation dynamics are widely believed to have significant influence on experimentally-observed confinement transitions in advanced operating modes in major tokamak experiments, such as the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR) [D. J. Grove and D. M. Meade, Nucl. Fusion 25, 1167 (1985)], with reversed magnetic shear regions in the plasma interior. The high-n toroidal drift modes destabilized by the combined effects of ion temperature gradients and trapped particles in toroidal geometry can be strongly affected by radially-sheared toroidal and poloidal plasma rotation. In previous work with the FULL linear microinstability code, a simplified rotation model including only toroidal rotation was employed, and results were obtained. Here, a more complete rotation model, which includes contributions from toroidal and poloidal rotation and the ion pressure gradient to the total radial electric field, is used for a proper self-consistent treatment of this key problem. Relevant advanced operating mode cases for TFTR are presented. In addition, the complementary problem of the dynamics of fluctuation-driven E×B flow is investigated by an integrated program of gyrokinetic simulation in annulus geometry and gyrofluid simulation in flux tube geometry.