Global flux-driven turbulence simulations in chaotic plasmas

Magnetized plasmas constitute most of the visible matter in the Universe. Understanding the highly-nonlinear dynamics, typically governed by turbulence processes, of magnetized plasmas is therefore of pivotal importance in many research areas, ranging from astrophysics to fusion applications. Here, we report on a global flux-driven turbulence investigation in reversed field pinch plasmas, including the effects of magnetic stochasticity and magnetic inhomogeneities that arise from self-organization processes characteristic of these configurations. In these simulations, plasma profiles are evolved self-consistently under the action of heating and particle sources, cross-field transport, and losses to the first wall. The presence of magnetic chaos is found to exert only a weak influence on turbulent transport in the plasma boundary region, while inducing relatively minor modifications in the statistical properties of turbulence fluctuations. The radial electric field predicted by these simulations is found to change fundamentally in the presence of magnetic chaos. In particular, this work offers a new perspective on the mechanisms behind the formation of the ambipolar electric field in plasmas with non-negligible stochastic processes, with applications beyond the context of reversed field pinch plasmas. Magnetized plasmas, prevalent throughout the Universe, exhibit complex turbulence dynamics crucial for fields from astrophysics to fusion energy. Here, the authors conduct a global fluxdriven turbulence study in reversed field pinch plasmas, revealing that magnetic chaos significantly alter the formation of an ambipolar electric field and weakly impact turbulence dynamics, with implications beyond fusion research.