A unified theory of transport barriers and of subneoclassical transport

Abstract

“Subneoclassical” heat fluxes are shown to be rigorous consequences of the revisited neoclassical theory published earlier [Phys. Plasmas 1, 619 (1994)]. Including finite Larmor radius and inertia effects, this theory also provides a nondegenerate ambipolarity constraint, which, together with the parallel momentum equation, defines unambiguously the radial electric field Er and the parallel velocity U∥,i. It is shown that the stationary solution of those equations features, under conditions that are discussed, highly sheared Er profiles as observed in edge transport barriers. The operation regime is determined by a competition between nonlinear spin up of the rotation (which is interpreted) and momentum loss via charge exchange neutrals. The position of the transport barrier—near the last closed magnetic surface (LCMS)—is explained. The local threshold condition is analyzed, including the role of recycling neutrals and of the isotope mass. The width of the shear layer, as well as the predicted jumps and negative values of Er in front of the LCMS, agrees with experimental data. The time-dependent equations have solutions propagating from the edge to the core; the time scale associated with the toroidal rotation scales as and is usually comparable to the neoclassical heat transport time scale. Although the theory is so far limited to the high collisionality regime, a clear physical interpretation of the results allows extrapolation to low collisionality plasmas.