Effect of sheared toroidal rotation on ion temperature gradient turbulence and resistive kink stability in a large aspect ratio tokamak.

The effect of externally imposed sheared toroidal rotation on ion temperature gradient turbulence (ITG) and magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) stability in a large aspect ratio tokamak has been studied using nonlinear gyrokinetic particle-in-cell and linear reduced MHD computer calculations. Compared to sheared poloidal rotation, it is found that more sheared toroidal rotation is needed to reduce or suppress ITG turbulence and sheared toroidal rotation appears to always be linearly destabilizing for the paradigmatic resistive internal kink MHD mode studied. © 2001 American Institute of Physics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]