3D structure and dynamics of filaments in turbulence simulations of WEST diverted plasmas

Abstract

We study the effect of a diverted magnetic geometry on edge plasma turbulence, focusing on the three-dimensional structure and dynamics of filaments, also called blobs, in simulations of the WEST tokamak, featuring a primary and secondary X-point. For this purpose, in addition to classical analysis techniques, we apply here a novel fully 3D blob recognition and tracking (BRAT) algorithm, allowing for the first time to resolve the three-dimensional structure and dynamics of the blobs in a turbulent 3D plasma featuring a realistic magnetic geometry. The results are tested against existing theoretical scalings of blob velocity (Myra et al 2006 Phys. Plasmas). The complementary analysis of the 3D structure of the filaments shows how they disconnect from the divertor plate in the vicinity of the X-points, leading to a transition from a sheath-connected regime to the ideal-interchange one. Furthermore, the numerical results show non-negligible effects of the turbulent background plasma: approximately half of the detected filaments are involved in mutual interactions, eventually resulting in negative radial velocities, and a fraction of the filaments is generated by turbulence directly below the X-point.