Stuttgart 2012 – wissenschaftliches Programm

Bereiche | Tage | Auswahl | Suche | Aktualisierungen | Downloads | Hilfe

P: Fachverband Plasmaphysik

P 11: Poster: Magnetischer Einschluss

P 11.8: Poster

Dienstag, 13. März 2012, 16:30–19:00, Poster.III

(contribution withdrawn) Analysis of bifurcated stationary zonal flow states in plasmas and planetary atmospheres - predicting climate change on Jupiter? — •Andreas Kammel and Klaus Hallatschek — Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik, Garching b. München

Zonal flows are a hot topic in both fusion plasmas and the atmospheres of gas giants as they are closely related to the improvement of confinement (H-barrier!) as well as the understanding of climate changes.

Studies of the interaction between drift waves and flows in a self-consistent resistive drift wave system - representing the highly nonlinear plasma edge - have been undertaken with the help of the two-fluid code NLET. A bifurcation into separate, stationary transport states has been observed, which depends only on a single regime-defining dimensionless parameter, marked by the ion sound Larmor radius and the length of maximal drift wave growth at a given parallel shear length. These states correspond to two different stable density gradients associated with a significant change in the shape of the respective flows, generated by negative turbulence viscosity - all explainable with only local dependencies and mentioned parameter.

The implications of these findings for gas giants such as Jupiter could be severe. Geostrophic modes are the fluid analog to plasma drift waves, making the existence of similar stable states in turbulent planetary atmospheres highly likely. This in turn could lead to a much improved model for the changes of large atmospheric structures in gas giants: a climate forecast for Jupiter, with possible implications for Earth and ITER alike.