A numerical simulation and analytical theory of the radial electric field dynamics in low collisional tokamak plasmas are presented. An initial value code ''ELECTRIC'' has been developed to solve the ion drift kinetic equation with a full collisional operator in the Hirshman-Sigmar-Clarke form together with the Maxwell equations. Different scenarios of relaxation of the radial electric field toward the steady-state in response to sudden and adiabatic changes of the equilibrium temperature gradient are presented. It is shown, that while the relaxation is usually accompanied by the geodesic acoustic oscillations, during the adiabatic change these oscillations are suppressed and only the magnetic pumping remains. Both the collisional damping and the Landau resonance interaction are shown to be important relaxation mechanisms. Scalings of the relaxation rates versus basic plasma parameters are presented.

No abstract

No abstract

The parametric decay of the laser radiation into two plasma waves at the quarter critical density of an inhomogeneous plasma is analyzed. The growth rate and threshold of the absolute instability are derived. The bound on the saturation level of the plasma waves is obtained from the consideration of the pump depletion. The scattered radiation at 3/2 ω0 due to the beating of the incident wave with the backward plasma wave is calculated and compared with observations.

Reconnection of the self-generated magnetic fields in laser-plasma interaction was first investigated experimentally by Nilson et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 255001 (2006)] by shining two laser pulses a distance apart on a solid target layer. An elongated current sheet (CS) was observed in the plasma between the two laser spots. In order to more closely model magnetotail reconnection, here two side-by-side thin target layers, instead of a single one, are used. It is found that at one end of the elongated CS a fanlike electron outflow region including three well-collimated electron jets appears. The (>1 MeV) tail of the jet energy distribution exhibits a power-law scaling. The enhanced electron acceleration is attributed to the intense inductive electric field in the narrow electron dominated reconnection region, as well as additional acceleration as they are trapped inside the rapidly moving plasmoid formed in and ejected from the CS. The ejection also induces a secondary CS.