Chaotic transport and damping from θ-ruffled separatrices

Phys Rev Lett. 2010 Nov 12;105(20):205001. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.205001. Epub 2010 Nov 9.

Abstract

Variations in magnetic or electrostatic confinement fields give rise to trapping separatrices, and neoclassical transport theory analyzes effects from collision-induced separatrix crossings. Experiments on pure electron plasmas now quantitatively characterize a broad range of transport and wave damping effects due to "chaotic" separatrix crossings, which occur due to equilibrium plasma rotation across θ-ruffled separatrices, and due to wave-induced separatrix fluctuations.