Validation study of a drift-wave turbulence model for CSDX linear plasma device

Abstract

A validation study of self-regulating drift-wave turbulence/zonal flow dynamics in the Controlled Shear Decorrelation Experiment linear plasma device using Langmuir probe synthetic diagnostics is presented in this paper. We use a set of nonlocal 3D equations, which evolve density, vorticity, and electron temperature fluctuations, and include proper sheath boundary conditions. Nonlinear simulations of these equations are carried out using BOUndary Turbulence (BOUT++) framework. To identify the dominant parametric dependencies of the model, a linear growth rate sensitivity analysis is performed using input parameter uncertainties, which are taken from the experimental measurements. For the direct comparison of nonlinear simulation results to experiment, we use synthetic Langmuir probe diagnostics to generate a set of synthetic ion saturation current and floating potential fluctuations. In addition, comparisons of azimuthal velocities determined via time-delay estimation, and nonlinear energy transfer are shown. We observe a significant improvement of model-experiment agreement relative to the previous 2D simulations. An essential component of this improved agreement is found to be the effect of electron temperature fluctuations on floating potential measurements, which introduces clear amplitude and phase shifts relative to the plasma potential fluctuations in synthetically measured quantities, where the simulations capture the experimental measurements in the core of plasma. However, the simulations overpredict the fluctuation levels at larger radii. Moreover, systematic simulation scans show that the self-generated E × B zonal flows profile is very sensitive to the steepening of density equilibrium profile. This suggests that evolving both fluctuations and equilibrium profiles, along with the inclusion of modest axial variation of radial profiles in the model are needed for further improvement of simulation results against the experimental measurements.