The Variation of Ionospheric O+ and H+ Outflow during Sawtooth Oscillations

<p>Sawtooth events are repeated injections of energetic particles at geosynchronous orbit. Although studies have shown that 94% of sawtooth events occur during  magnetic storm times, the main factor that causes a sawtooth event is unknown. Simulations have suggested that heavy ions like O<sup>+</sup> may play a role in driving the sawtooth mode by increasing the magnetotail pressure and causing the magnetic tail to stretch. O<sup>+</sup> ions located in the nightside auroral region have a direct access to the near-earth plasma-sheet. O<sup>+</sup> in the dayside cusp can reach to the midtail plasma-sheet when the convection velocity is sufficiently strong. Whether the dayside or nightside source is more important is not known.</p><p>We show results of a statistical study of the variation of the O+ and H+ outflow flux during sawtooth events for SIR and ICME sawtooth events. We perform a superposed epoch analysis of the ion outflow using the TEAMS (Time-of-Flight Energy Angle Mass Spectrograph) instrument on the FAST spacecraft. TEAMS measures the ion composition over the energy range of 1 eV e<sup>-1</sup> to 12 keV e<sup>-1</sup>.  We have done major corrections and calibrations (producing 3D data set, anode calibration, mass classification, removing ram effect and incorporating dead time corrections) on TEAMS data and produced a data set for four data species (H<sup>+</sup>, O<sup>+</sup>, and He<sup>+</sup>). From 1996 to 2007, we have data for 133 orbits of CME-driven and for 103 orbits of SIR-driven sawtooth events with an altitude above 1500 km. We found that:</p><ul><li>the averaged O<sup>+</sup> outflow flux is more intense in the cusp dayside than in the nightside, before and after onset time.</li> <li><span>Before onset, an intense averaged outflow flux in the dawnside of CME events is seen. This outflow decreases after onset time.</span></li> <li><span>In both CME-driven and SIR-driven, the averaged O</span><sup>+</sup><span> outflow increases after onset time, in the nightside, cusp dayside. This increase is greater on the nightside than in the cusp.</span></li> </ul><p>We will develop this study by performing a similar statistical study for H<sup>+</sup> outflow and finally will compare the H<sup>+</sup> result with the O<sup>+ </sup>result.</p>

Kinetic infernal modes for Wendelstein 7-X-like -profiles

We show analytically that for $\unicode[STIX]{x1D704}$ -profiles similar to the one of the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator, where $\unicode[STIX]{x1D704}$ is the rotational transform of the equilibrium magnetic field, a highly conducting toroidal plasma is unstable to kinetically mediated pressure-driven long-wavelength reconnecting modes, of the infernal type. The modes are destabilized either by the electron temperature gradient or by a small amount of current, depending on how far from unity the average value of $\unicode[STIX]{x1D704}$ is, which is assumed to be slowly varying. We argue that, for W7-X, a broad mode with toroidal and poloidal mode numbers $(n,m)=(1,1)$ can be destabilized due to the strong geometric side-band coupling of the resonant kinetic electron response at locations where $\unicode[STIX]{x1D704}$ is rational for harmonics that belong to the mode family of the $(n,m)=(1,1)$ mode itself. In many regimes, the growth rate is insensitive to the plasma density, thus it is likely to persist in high performance W7-X discharges. For a peaked electron temperature, with a maximum of $T_{e}=5~\text{keV}$ , larger than the ion temperature, $T_{i}=2.5~\text{keV}$ , and a density $n_{0}=10^{19}~\text{m}^{-3}$ , instability is found in regimes which show plasma sawtooth activity, with growth rates of the order of tens of kiloHertz. Frequencies are either electron diamagnetic or of the ideal magnetohydrodynamic type, but sub-Alfvénic. The kinetic infernal mode is thus a good candidate for the explanation of sawtooth oscillations in present-day stellarators and poses a new challenge to the problem of stellarator reactor optimization.

Resonance-driven oscillations in a flexible-channel flow with fixed upstream flux and a long downstream rigid segment

Flow driven through a planar channel having a finite-length membrane inserted in one wall can be unstable to self-excited oscillations. In a recent study (Xu, Billingham & Jensen J. Fluid Mech., vol. 723, 2013, pp. 706–733), we identified a mechanism of instability arising when the inlet flux and outlet pressure are held constant, and the rigid segment of the channel downstream of the membrane is sufficiently short to have negligible influence on the resulting oscillations. Here we identify an independent mechanism of instability that is intrinsically coupled to flow in the downstream rigid segment, which becomes prominent when the downstream segment is much longer than the membrane. Using a spatially one-dimensional model of the system, we perform a three-parameter unfolding of a degenerate bifurcation point having four zero eigenvalues. Our analysis reveals how instability is promoted by a 1:1 resonant interaction between two modes, with the resulting oscillations described by a fourth-order amplitude equation. This predicts the existence of saturated sawtooth oscillations, which we reproduce in full Navier–Stokes simulations of the same system.