On q dependence of thermal transport in tokamaks

Abstract

Analysis based on a gyro-kinetic ballooning stability code predicts that both the ion and electron thermal diffusivities, due to the ion temperature gradient (ITG) and electron temperature gradient (ETG) modes, respectively, increase with the safety factor q almost linearly. In the case of ITG driven ion thermal diffusivity, the q dependence originates from the coupling to the ion acoustic mode, and in the case of the electron thermal diffusivity due to the ETG mode, it emerges from the coupling to the skin size drift mode. In the ETG mode, charge neutrality does not hold for typical tokamak discharges, and mixing length estimates yield a thermal diffusivity large enough to be relevant to experiments.