Experimental evidence of a zonal magnetic field in a toroidal plasma

Phys Rev Lett. 2007 Apr 20;98(16):165001. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.165001. Epub 2007 Apr 18.

Abstract

A zonal magnetic field is found in a toroidal plasma. The magnetic field has a symmetric bandlike structure, which is uniform in the toroidal and poloidal directions and varies radially with a finite wavelength of mesoscale, which is analogous to zonal flows. A time-dependent bicoherence analysis reveals that the magnetic field should be generated by the background plasma turbulence. The discovery is classified as a new kind of phenomenon of structured magnetic field generation, giving insight into phenomena such as dipole field generation in rotational planets.