Geodesic Acoustic Propagation and Ballooning Mode Formalism

Relevance of ballooning formalism (BMF) in nonlinear interaction of toroidal electromagnetic drift waves in the presence of zonal flows and Geodesic Acoustic Oscillation (GAO) is critically examined from a physical argument of radial propagation of wave packets. To achieve the quasi-translational invariance of poloidal harmonics which is necessary for the BMF, the geodesic curvature induced transfer [1] of fluctuation energy in radial direction should occur faster than the time scale of physical interest. Of course, this does not happen necessarily in drift-Alfven (DALF) turbulence simulations [2]. This observation casts considerable doubts on the applicability of various codes based on the BMF concept to nonlinear electromagnetic problems. \newline \newline [1] B. Scott, Phys. Letters A 320 (2003) 53. [2] B. Scott, New J. Phys 7 (2005) 92.