Transport in gyrokinetic tokamaks

Abstract

A comprehensive study of transport in full-volume gyrokinetic (gk) simulations of ion temperature gradient driven turbulence in core tokamak plasmas is presented. Though this ``gyrokinetic tokamak`` is much simpler than experimental tokamaks, such simplicity is an asset, because a dependable nonlinear transport theory for such systems should be more attainable. Toward this end, we pursue two related lines of inquiry. (1) We study the scalings of gk tokamaks with respect to important system parameters. In contrast to real machines, the scalings of larger gk systems (a/{rho}{sub s} {approx_gt} 64) with minor radius, with current, and with a/{rho}{sub s} are roughly consistent with the approximate theoretical expectations for electrostatic turbulent transport which exist as yet. Smaller systems manifest quite different scalings, which aids in interpreting differing mass-scaling results in other work. (2) With the goal of developing a first-principles theory of gk transport, we use the gk data to infer the underlying transport physics. The data indicate that, of the many modes k present in the simulation, only a modest number (N{sub k} {approximately} 10) of k dominate the transport, and for each, only a handful (N{sub p} {approximately} 5) of couplings to other modes p appear to be significant, implying that the essential transport physics may be described by a far simpler system than would have been expected on the basis of earlier nonlinear theory alone. Part of this analysis is the inference of the coupling coefficients M{sub kpq} governing the nonlinear mode interactions, whose measurement from tokamak simulation data is presented here for the first time.