Magnetic shaping effects on turbulence in ADITYA-U tokamak

Abstract The work reported in this paper addresses two aspects. In the first part, numerical simulations are conducted to examine the impact of magnetic equilibrium shaping (elongation and triangularity), on both conventional Ion Temperature Gradient (ITG) modes and Short Wavelength ITG modes. This analysis is performed considering the experimental profiles and parameters of the ADITYA-U tokamak, employing the nonlinear global gyrokinetic Particle-in-Cell code ORB5. The linear and nonlinear collisionless electrostatic simulation of these modes are carried out with kinetic ions and adiabatic electrons. From the linear results, it has been observed that the magnetic equilibrium shaping slighty reduced the growth rates and widened the spectrum, and the maxima of growth rate curve is shifted to higher toroidal wave number. We find that the heat flux is reduced by a significant <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>≃</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> <mml:mn>35</mml:mn> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">%</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> for the true circular magnetohydrodynamic magnetic equilibrium as compared to ad hoc concentric circular equilibrium reported in Singh et al (2023 Nucl. Fusion 63 086029). A further <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>≃</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> <mml:mn>10</mml:mn> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">%</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> reduction in the heat flux is seen with magnetic equilibrium shaping. In the second part, linear collisionless electrostatic simulation studies of ITG coupled with fully kinetic electrons (both trapped and passing electrons are treated kinetically) using a drift-kinetic ordering is performed. It can be seen from the linear results that, in presence of kinetic electrons, the growth rate and real frequency of the ITG mode are increased significantly for ADITYA-U parameters and a mode propagating in the electron diamagnetic direction is identified at high toroidal wavenumbers.