Direct evidence of zonal flow (ZF) predator-prey oscillations and the synergistic roles of ZF- and equilibrium E×B flow shear in triggering the low- to high-confinement (L- to H-mode) transition in ...the DIII-D tokamak is presented. Periodic turbulence suppression is first observed in a narrow layer at and just inside the separatrix when the shearing rate transiently exceeds the turbulence decorrelation rate. The final transition to H mode with sustained turbulence and transport reduction is controlled by equilibrium E×B shear due to the increasing ion pressure gradient.
A critical gradient threshold has been observed for the first time in a systematic, controlled experiment for a locally measured turbulent quantity in the core of a confined high-temperature plasma. ...In an experiment in the DIII-D tokamak where L(T(e))(-1) = |∇T(e)|/T(e) and toroidal rotation were varied, long wavelength (k(θ)ρ(s) ≲ 0.4) electron temperature fluctuations exhibit a threshold in L(T(e))(-1): below, they change little; above, they steadily increase. The increase in δT(e)/T(e) is concurrent with increased electron heat flux and transport stiffness. Observations were insensitive to rotation. Accumulated evidence strongly enforces the identification of the experimentally observed threshold with ∇T(e)-driven trapped electron mode turbulence.
Measurements of local density and magnetic field fluctuations near the pedestal top, conditionally averaged over the edge localized mode (ELM) cycle, have been made in Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak ...(MAST). A Doppler backscattering (DBS) system installed at MAST was used to measure intermediate-k density fluctuations at the top of the pedestal. A novel diagnostic technique combining DBS with cross-polarization scattering (CP-DBS) enabled magnetic field fluctuations to also be locally measured at similar wave numbers. Polarization isolation and other effects for CP-DBS are discussed. Both measurements were used in a series of high-β -4.5) MAST plasmas with large type-I ELMs with an period where microtearing modes (MTMs) had been predicted to be unstable in similar conditions (Dickinson 2012 Phys. Rev. Lett. 108 135002). The measured density fluctuation level increased by a factor of about 4 between 2 and 4 ms after the ELM, which was correlated with the recovery of the density profile while the temperature pedestal height continued to increase slowly. Magnetic field fluctuations showed different temporal behaviors, slowly increasing throughout the ELM cycle as the local β increased. Linear GS2 calculations show both MTM and electron temperature gradient (ETG) modes unstable at similar wave numbers as the measurements (although with more overlap between ETG wave numbers and diagnostic spectral resolution) at the top of the pedestal, along with kinetic ballooning modes are unstable lower in the pedestal (at larger wavelengths). The inferred ratio of fluctuation levels from experiment was . The comparable ratios from GS2 were for the MTM and for the ETG. Both the experimental wave number range and the fluctuation ratio are more similar to the linear characteristics of the ETG than the MTM. These results imply that intermediate-k fluctuations due to the ETG play a role in inter-ELM pedestal evolution.
Tokamak plasmas rotate even without external injection of momentum. A Doppler backscattering system installed at MAST has allowed this intrinsic rotation to be studied in ohmic L-mode and H-mode ...plasmas, including the first observation of intrinsic rotation reversals in a spherical tokamak. Experimental results are compared to a novel 1D model, which captures the collisionality dependence of the radial transport of toroidal angular momentum due to the effect of neoclassical flows on turbulent fluctuations. The model is able to accurately reproduce the change in sign of core toroidal rotation, using experimental density and temperature profiles from shots with rotation reversals as inputs and no free parameters fit to experimental data.
A series of carefully designed experiments on DIII-D have taken advantage of a broad set of turbulence and profile diagnostics to rigorously test gyrokinetic turbulence simulations. In this paper the ...goals, tools and experiments performed in these validation studies are reviewed and specific examples presented. It is found that predictions of transport and fluctuation levels in the mid-core region (0.4 < ρ < 0.75) are in better agreement with experiment than those in the outer region (ρ ⩾ 0.75) where edge coupling effects may become increasingly important and multiscale simulations may also be necessary. Validation studies such as these are crucial in developing confidence in a first-principles based predictive capability for ITER.
The high-k () wavenumber spectrum of density fluctuations has been measured for the first time in MAST (Lloyd et al 2003 Nucl. Fusion 43 1665). This was accomplished with the first implementation of ...Doppler backscattering (DBS) for core measurements in a spherical tokamak. DBS has become a well-established and versatile diagnostic technique for the measurement of intermediate- k (, and higher) density fluctuations and flows in magnetically confined fusion experiments. Previous implementations of DBS for core measurements have been in standard, large aspect ratio tokamaks. A novel implementation with two-dimensional (2D) steering was necessary to enable DBS measurements in MAST, where the large variation of the magnetic field pitch angle presents a challenge. We report on the scattering considerations and ray tracing calculations used to optimize the design and present data demonstrating measurement capabilities. Initial results confirm the applicability of the design and implementation approaches, showing the strong dependence of scattering alignment on the toroidal launch angle and demonstrating that DBS is sensitive to the local magnetic field pitch angle. We also present comparisons of DBS plasma velocity measurements with charge exchange recombination and beam emission spectroscopy measurements, which show reasonable agreement over most of the minor radius, but imply large poloidal flows approaching the magnetic axis in a discharge with an internal transport barrier. The 2D steering is shown to enable high-k measurements with DBS, at cm () for launch frequencies less than 75 GHz; this capability is used to measure the wavenumber spectrum of turbulence and we find for -11, which is similar to the expectation for the turbulent kinetic cascade of .
Abstract
We present the results of GENE gyrokinetic calculations based on a series of JET–ITER-like-wall (ILW) type I ELMy H-mode discharges operating with similar experimental inputs but at ...different levels of power and gas fuelling. We show that turbulence due to electron-temperature-gradient (ETGs) modes produces a significant amount of heat flux in four JET–ILW discharges, and, when combined with neoclassical simulations, is able to reproduce the experimental heat flux for the two low gas pulses. The simulations plausibly reproduce the high-gas heat fluxes as well, although power balance analysis is complicated by short ELM cycles. By independently varying the normalised temperature gradients
(
ω
T
e
)
and normalised density gradients
(
ω
n
e
)
around their experimental values, we demonstrate that it is the ratio of these two quantities
η
e
=
ω
T
e
/
ω
n
e
that determines the location of the peak in the ETG growth rate and heat flux spectra. The heat flux increases rapidly as
η
e
increases above the experimental point, suggesting that ETGs limit the temperature gradient in these pulses. When quantities are normalised using the minor radius, only increases in
ω
T
e
produce appreciable increases in the ETG growth rates, as well as the largest increases in turbulent heat flux which follow scalings similar to that of critical balance theory. However, when the heat flux is normalised to the electron gyro-Bohm heat flux using the temperature gradient scale length
L
T
e
, it follows a linear trend in correspondence with previous work by different authors.
Abstract
A linear response, local model for the DBS amplitude applied to gyrokinetic simulations shows that radial correlation Doppler reflectometry measurements (RCDR, Schirmer
et al
2007
Plasma ...Phys. Control. Fusion
49
1019) are not sensitive to the average turbulence radial correlation length, but to a correlation length that depends on the binormal wavenumber
k
⊥
selected by the Doppler backscattering (DBS) signal. Nonlinear gyrokinetic simulations show that the turbulence naturally exhibits a nonseparable power law spectrum in wavenumber space, leading to a power law dependence of the radial correlation length with binormal wavenumber
l
r
∼
C
k
⊥
−
α
(
α
≈
1
)
which agrees with the inverse proportionality relationship between the measured
l
r
and
k
⊥
observed in experiments (Fernández-Marina
et al
2014
Nucl. Fusion
54
072001). This new insight indicates that RCDR characterizes the eddy aspect ratio in the perpendicular plane to the magnetic field. It also motivates future use of a nonseparable turbulent spectrum to quantitatively interpret RCDR and potentially other turbulence diagnostics. The radial correlation length is only measurable when the radial resolution at the cutoff location
W
n
satisfies
W
n
≪
l
r
, while the measurement becomes dominated by
W
n
for
W
n
≫
l
r
. This suggests that
l
r
is likely to be inaccessible for electron-scale DBS measurements (
k
⊥
ρ
s
>
1
). The effect of
W
n
on ion-scale radial correlation lengths could be nonnegligible.
We present direct evidence of low frequency, radially sheared, turbulence-driven flows (zonal flows (ZFs)) triggering edge transport barrier formation preceding the L- to H-mode transition via ...periodic turbulence suppression in limit-cycle oscillations (LCOs), consistent with predator-prey dynamics. The final transition to edge-localized mode-free H-mode occurs after the equilibrium E × B flow shear increases due to ion pressure profile evolution. ZFs are also observed to initiate formation of an electron internal transport barrier (ITB) at the q = 2 rational surface via local suppression of electron-scale turbulence. Multi-channel Doppler backscattering (DBS) has revealed the radial structure of the ZF-induced shear layer and the E × B shearing rate, ωE×B, in both barrier types. During edge barrier formation, the shearing rate lags the turbulence envelope during the LCO by 90°, transitioning to anti-correlation (180°) when the equilibrium shear dominates the turbulence-driven flow shear due to the increasing edge pressure gradient. The time-dependent flow shear and the turbulence envelope are anti-correlated (180° out of phase) in the electron ITB. LCOs with time-reversed evolution dynamics (transitioning from an equilibrium-flow dominated to a ZF-dominated state) have also been observed during the H-L back-transition and are potentially of interest for controlled ramp-down of the plasma stored energy and pressure (normalized to the poloidal magnetic field) in ITER.
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