Runaway electron control by self-excited waves

Abstract

Runaway-electron avalanches in tokamak plasmas can be limited by kinetic instabilities driven by the non-Maxwellian runaway distribution. We formulate a reduced model for the quasi-steady state in which the total plasma current and bulk electron temperature are prescribed, while the inductive electric field is determined self-consistently from the partition between Ohmic bulk current and runaway-electron current. Because the wave growth time is short compared with the current-decay time, we consider a marginal-stability regime, in which whistler-wave drive by the runaway electrons balances collisional damping. The resulting states separate into three regimes: a subcritical Ohmic regime without an avalanche, an avalanche regime in which runaway growth relaxes the inductive field to the avalanche threshold, and an instability-regulated regime in which self-excited whistler waves enhance momentum-space diffusion and limit the runaway current. In the instability-regulated regime, the whistler wave spectrum forms a narrow ridge, and low-energy runaway electrons carry most of the runaway current.