Collisionality and magnetic geometry effects on tokamak edge turbulent transport. I. A two-region model with application to blobs

Abstract

A two-region model is proposed to study the effect of collisionality and magnetic geometry on electrostatic turbulence and on the propagation of filamentary coherent structures (blobs) in the edge and scrape-off layer. The model invokes coupled vorticity and continuity equations in two different spatial regions along the magnetic field, taking into account the effect of magnetic field fanning and shear, e.g., near magnetic X-points. A linear dispersion relation for unstable modes illustrates the physics of mode disconnection (ballooning) along the magnetic field and its dependence on collisionality and wave number (scale size). Employing an invariant scaling analysis, dimensionless parameters for the nonlinear model are developed and used to describe the regimes of the system. A blob correspondence rule is postulated to relate the linear mode growth rates and regimes to the convective velocity of blobs. Nonlinear numerical simulations of blob convection show good agreement with a blob dispersion relation derived from the correspondence rule. It is found that collisionality increases the convective velocity. The convective velocity also depends on blob scale size, with either positive or negative exponent, depending on the collisionality regime. Finally, the dimensionless scaling analysis is employed to obtain bounds on the convective velocity suitable for experimental tests.