Drift resonance effect on stochastic runaway electron orbit in the presence of low-order magnetic perturbations

Matsuyama, Akinobu; Yagi, Masatoshi; Kagei, Yasuhiro; Nakajima, Noriyoshi*

The stochastization mechanisms of such high-energy RE drift orbits are investigated by 3D orbit following in tokamak plasmas. Drift resonance is shown to play an important role indetermining the onset of stochastic drift orbits for different electron energies, particularly in cases with low-order perturbations that have radially global eigenfunctions. The drift resonance due to the coupling between the cross-field drift motion with radially global modes yields a secondary island structure in the RE drift orbit. Only for highly relativistic REs, the widths of secondary drift islands are comparable with those of magnetic islands due to the primary resonance, thus the stochastic threshold becoming sensitive to the RE energy. Because of poloidal asymmetry due to toroidicity, the thresholdbecomes sensitive not only to the relative amplitude but also to the phase difference between the modes.