No Arabic abstract
Plasma density fluctuations in the edge plasma of the RFX-mod device are measured through the Gas Puffing Imaging Diagnostics. Statistical features of the signal are quantified in terms of the Probability Distribution Function (PDF), and computed for several kinds of discharges. The PDFs from discharges without particular control methods are found to be adequately described by a Gamma function, consistently with the recent results by Graves et al [J.P. Graves, et al, Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion 47, L1 (2005)]. On the other hand, pulses with external methods for plasma control feature modified PDFs. A first empirical analysis suggests that they may be interpolated through a linear combination of simple functions. An inspection of the literature shows that this kind of PDFs is common to other devices as well, and has been suggested to be due to the simultaneous presence of different mechanisms driving respectively coherent bursts and gaussian background turbulence. An attempt is made to relate differences in the PDFs to plasma conditions such as the local shift of the plasma column. A simple phenomenological model to interpret the nature of the PDF and assign a meaning to its parameters is also developed.
Present-days Reversed Field Pinches (RFPs) are characterized by quasi-laminar magnetic configurations in their core, whose boundaries feature sharp internal transport barriers, in analogy with tokamaks and stellarators. The abatement of magnetic chaos leads to the reduction of associated particle and heat transport along wandering field lines. At the same time, the growth of steep temperature gradients may trigger drift microinstabilities. In this work we summarize the work recently done in the RFP RFX-mod in order to assess the existence and the impact upon transport of such electrostatic and electromagnetic microinstabilities as Ion Temperature Gradient (ITG), Trapped Electron Modes (TEM) and microtearing modes.
We present here a study about the stability of Ion-Temperature-Gradient drift turbulence in the Quasi-Single-Helicity regime of RFX-mod Reversed Field Pinch (RFP) using the TRB fluid electrostatic turbulence code. Our results suggest that present-days RFP plasmas are marginally stable against this kind of turbulence. The onset of the instability may be envisaged for close future regimes, in the presence of hotter plasmas with sharper internal transport barriers.
The physical processes taking place at the edge region are crucial for the operation of tokamaks as they govern the interaction of hot plasma with the vessel walls. Numerical modeling of the edge with state-of-the-art codes attempts to elucidate interactions between neoclassical drifts, turbulence, poloidal and parallel flows that control the physical set-up of the SOL region. Here, we present post-processing analysis of simulations from the gyrokinetic code XGC1, comparing edge turbulence characteristics from a simulation of DIII-D against one of C-Mod. We find that the equilibrium $E times B$ flux across the separatrix has a similar poloidal pattern in both discharges which can be explained by magnetic drifts and trapped ion excursions. However, collisionality is noted to play a major role in that it prevents local charge accumulations from having global effects in C-Mod. In both cases, turbulent electron heat flux is higher than the ion one. This seems to be a universal characteristic of the tokamak edge. We identify turbulent frequencies and growth rates of the dominant mode in both simulations. In C-Mod, these numbers point to the presence of a drift wave. In DIII-D, linear simulations with Gene reveal a trapped electron mode. Furthermore, we present the amplitude and size distributions of the blobs from both simulations. Amplitude distributions are in qualitative agreement with experimental observations while size distributions are consistent with the fact that most blobs are not connecting to the divertor plates and suggest that they are generated by the shearing of the turbulent modes.
Bursty fluctuations in the scrape-off layer (SOL) of Alcator C-Mod have been analyzed using gas puff imaging data. This reveals many of the same fluctuation properties as Langmuir probe measurements, including normal distributed fluctuations in the near SOL region while the far SOL plasma is dominated by large amplitude bursts due to radial motion of blob-like structures. Conditional averaging reveals burst wave forms with a fast rise and slow decay and exponentially distributed waiting times. Based on this, a stochastic model of burst dynamics is constructed. The model predicts that fluctuation amplitudes should follow a Gamma distribution. This is shown to be a good description of the gas puff imaging data, validating this aspect of the model.
Resistive drift wave turbulence is a multipurpose paradigm that can be used to understand transport at the edge of fusion devices. The Hasegawa-Wakatani model captures the essential physics of drift turbulence while retaining the simplicity needed to gain a qualitative understanding of this process. We provide a theoretical interpretation of numerically generated probability density functions (PDFs) of intermittent events in Hasegawa-Wakatani turbulence with enforced equipartition of energy in large scale zonal flows and small scale drift turbulence. We find that for a wide range of adiabatic index values the stochastic component representing the small scale turbulent eddies of the flow, obtained from the ARIMA model, exhibits super-diffusive statistics, consistent with intermittent transport. The PDFs of large events (above one standard deviation) are well approximated by the Laplace distribution, while small events often exhibit a Gaussian character. Furthermore there exist a strong influence of zonal flows for example, via shearing and then viscous dissipation maintaining a sub-diffusive character of the fluxes.