Non linear dynamics of magnetic islands in fusion plasmas

In this thesis we investigate the issues of linear stability of the tearing modes in a presence of both curvature and diamagnetic rotation using the non linear full-MHD toroidal code XTOR-2F, which includes anisotropic heat transport, diamagnetic and geometrical effects. This analysis is applied to one of the fully non-inductive discharges on Tore-Supra. Such experiments are crucially important to demonstrate reactor scale steady state operation for the tokamak. The possibility of a full linear stabilization of the tearing modes by diamagnetic rotation in the presence of toroidal curvature is shown. The stabilization threshold does not follow the classical scaling law connecting the growth rate of islands to plasma conductivity, measured here by the Lundquist number (S). However, for numerical reasons, the conductivity used in the simulations is lower than that of the experiment, which raises the question of extrapolation of the obtained results to the experimental situation. The extrapolation of the obtained results requires simulations with several different conductivities. It predicts that the mode at q = 2 surface to be stable at value of diamagnetic frequency consistent with the experimental one at S = S(exp). In the linearly stable domain, the mode is metastable: saturation level depends on the seed island size. In the non linear regime, the saturation of n=1, m=2 mode is found to be strongly reduced by diamagnetic rotation and by Lundquist number. However, the extrapolation to the experimental situation shows that if the island is destabilized, it will saturate at a detectable level for the Tore Supra diagnostic. For a large plasma aspect ratio (i.e. weak curvature effects), the reduction of the saturated width by diamagnetic frequency takes the form of a jump reminiscent of multiple states evidenced in slab geometry case. The question of extrapolation of the obtained results towards future generation of fusion devices is also addressed. In particular, for ITER size machines, the toroidal curvature is expected to be more important due to higher performance factor β. The stabilizing effect of the diamagnetic rotation will be lower, but the conductivity will be higher, and final scaling laws for these two parameters indicate a smaller reduction of the nonlinear saturation if it follows the behavior found in the case of Tore Supra