Non-linear dynamics and plasma flows in a basic toroidal plasma experiment

Abstract

Analyses of non-linear interactions in drift-wave turbulence were carried out in wavenumber space on experimental data obtained from multi-probe measurements in the toroidally confined plasma of the stellarator TJ-K. Recent results are reported. The inverse cascade of energy from small to large scales as typical for two-dimensional turbulence is verified. The transfer in k space is found to be governed by non-local processes. The same way, large-scale zonal flows (ZFs) are found to tap energy from small-scale turbulence, as consistent with the vortex-thinning mechanism. An enhancement of the correlation between ZF shear and Reynolds stress as a source of ZF energy is observed, when strong background shear flows are imposed, which comes along with increased long-range correlations.