On electromagnetic turbulence and transport in STEP

In this work, we present first-of-their-kind nonlinear local gyrokinetic (GK) simulations of electromagnetic turbulence at mid-radius in the burning plasma phase of the conceptual high-beta, reactor-scale, tight-aspect-ratio tokamak Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP). A prior linear analysis in Kennedy et al (2023 Nucl. Fusion 63 126061) reveals the presence of unstable hybrid kinetic ballooning modes (KBMs), where inclusion of the compressional magnetic field fluctuation, delta B parallel to , is crucial, and subdominant microtearing modes (MTMs) are found at binormal scales approaching the ion-Larmor radius. Local nonlinear GK simulations on the selected surface in the central core region suggest that hybrid KBMs can drive large turbulent transport, and that there is negligible turbulent transport from subdominant MTMs when hybrid KBMs are artificially suppressed (through the omission of delta B parallel to ). Nonlinear simulations that include perpendicular equilibrium flow shear can saturate at lower fluxes that are more consistent with the available sources in STEP. This analysis suggests that hybrid KBMs could play an important role in setting the turbulent transport in STEP, and possible mechanisms to mitigate turbulent transport are discussed. Increasing the safety factor or the pressure gradient strongly reduces turbulent transport from hybrid KBMs in the cases considered here. Challenges of simulating electromagnetic turbulence in this high-beta regime are highlighted. In particular the observation of radially extended turbulent structures in the absence of equilibrium flow shear motivates future advanced global GK simulations that include delta B parallel to .