Observation of nonlinear couplings between coexisting kinetic geodesic acoustic modes in the edge plasmas of the HT-7 tokamak.

Coexisting multi-geodesic acoustic modes (GAMs), especially coexisting dual GAMs, are observed and studied through Langmuir probe arrays at the edge plasmas of the HT-7 tokamak with lithium-coated walls. The dual GAMs are named a low-frequency GAM (LFGAM) and a high-frequency GAM (HFGAM), and it is found that within the measuring range, the HFGAM propagates outwards while the LFGAM propagates both inwards and outwards with their central frequencies nearly unchanged, and both modes have maximum amplitudes at positions with radial wavenumbers close to zero; meanwhile, the two positions happen to be where the continuum GAM frequency is closest to the central frequencies of the LFGAM and the HFGAM. These characteristics are consistent with those of a kinetic GAM converted from a continuum GAM. The nonlinear couplings between the LFGAM and the HFGAM are also analysed. In this study, we observed not only the interaction between the LFGAM and the HFGAM, but also the self-coupling of the GAM with the beat frequency between them, as well as the coupling between the LFGAM and an unknown mode at ∼50 kHz. These nonlinear interactions may play important roles during the saturation process of GAMs. Additionally, amplitude correlation analyses of multi-GAMs indicate that second harmonic GAMs are probably generated from the self-interaction of fundamental GAMs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]