Oscillations of zonal flows in stellarators

The linear response of a collisionless stellarator plasma to an applied radial electric field is calculated, both analytically and numerically. Unlike in a tokamak, the electric field and associated zonal flow develop oscillations before settling down to a stationary state, the so-called Rosenbluth–Hinton flow residual. These oscillations are caused by locally trapped particles with radially drifting bounce orbits. The particles also cause a kind of Landau damping of the oscillations that depends on the magnetic configuration. The relative importance of geodesic acoustic modes and zonal-flow oscillations therefore varies among different stellarators.