Study of interactions between GAMs and broadband turbulence in the T-10 tokamak

Abstract

New findings in study of geodesic acoustic modes (GAMs) on the T-10 tokamak since the last IAEA FEC 2014 are described. The broadband fluctuations of potential φ and electron density ne in Ohmic and ECRH regimes are analyzed with Heavy Ion Beam Probing along with fluctuations of poloidal magnetic field Bpol. At the edge, at ρ > 0.8, the dominated GAM peak with frequency 17 kHz in potential fluctuations, and noticeable peak of quasi-coherent density and potential fluctuations with frequency 40–100 kHz and HFHM ~30 kHz are observed. During ECRH of high density ~ 4 × 1019 m−3 plasmas, the level of broadband fluctuations decreases, but the energy confinement degrades and the GAM amplitude on φ rises. The bi-spectral analysis of φ and ne fluctuations demonstrates the existence of statistically significant auto- and cross-bicoherence at the GAM frequency that points out to three-wave interaction between GAM and broadband electrostatic turbulence, while the cross-bicoherence for φ, ne and Bpol indicates three-wave interaction between GAM and broadband electromagnetic turbulence. These three-wave interactions may be explained by quadratic character of nonlinear GAM generation, e.g. owing to Reynolds stress.