Resistive pressure gradient-driven turbulence at stellarator plasma edge

Abstract

High resolution calculations of resistive pressure gradient-driven turbulence for the plasma edge parameters of the Advanced Toroidal Facility (ATF) [J. F. Lyon et al., Fusion Technol. 10, 179 (1986)] electron cyclotron heated discharges give fluctuation levels, consistent with the experimental measurements. This turbulence model is also used to simulate the transition from the low confinement to the high confinement mode. The transition is triggered through the poloidal flow amplification induced by the Reynolds stress. After the transition, the confinement improvement is relatively low (30%–40%), even for unrealistically low poloidal viscosity. In the high confinement mode, the characteristic radial scale length of the poloidal flow in the three-dimensional calculations (separation between the lowest-n resonant surfaces) is different from the single helicity results (radial correlation length of the fluctuations). The simple criterion based on the ratio of shearing rate to the linear growth rate does not quantitatively account for the fluctuation reduction.