Effects of resonant magnetic perturbations on turbulence and flows in the edge of HL-2A plasmas

Abstract

The influence of resonant magnetic perturbations (RMPs) on the dynamics of turbulence and flows at the edge of the HL-2A tokamak is analyzed utilizing transfer entropy technique. The results have shown that the RMP damps the poloidal flows as well as the E × B shearing rate, whereas enhances the toroidal flows and leads to a broadened particle spectrum with increased small scale turbulence transport. The causality analysis indicates that the regulation impact of poloidal flow on turbulent fluctuations and particle flux is weakened, while that of the toroidal rotation on the latter is strengthened by the RMP field. The impact of the changes in poloidal flow dominates over that of the modified toroidal flow on turbulent transport in the edge. The magnetic perturbation and the flows generally show predator–prey oscillations, where the causal effect between the former and the toroidal flow transits to a synchronization relation in the presence of RMP. In addition, the RMP field will weaken the causal effect on poloidal Reynolds stress while strengthening the parallel-radial component simultaneously. The present findings provide a possible explanation on the effects of external fields on the edge transport, which is suggested to be dominated by the complex interactions among external perturbations, flows, and ambient microturbulence.