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We report the results of a gyrokinetic simulation study elucidating the characteristics of the current driven by electron temperature gradient (ETG) turbulence in toroidal geometry. We examined the amount of the ETG turbulence-driven current for different turbulence levels, which were obtained by varying the relative electron gyroradius ρ* = ρe/a. Simulations show that the amount of the ETG turbulence-driven current increases with ρ* due to the gyro-Bohm scaling of turbulence intensity. A perturbation of the equilibrium q-profile by the ETG turbulence-driven current becomes noticeable when ρ* > 1/4000. Even in a small ρ* case, the proportional relation between the ETG turbulence-driven current and turbulence intensity suggests that a considerable intrinsic current can be driven inside an edge pedestal where a steep gradient of the electron temperature profile can excite ETG turbulence in a narrow region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fluid Reynolds stress from turbulence has usually been considered to be responsible for the anomalous toroidal momentum transport in tokamak plasma. Experiment by Müuller et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 115001 (2011)], however, reported that neither the observed edge rotation profile nor the inward momentum transport phenomenon at the edge region of an H-mode plasma could be explained by the fluid Reynolds stress measured with reciprocating Langmuir-probe. The fullfunction gyrokinetic code XGC1 is used to explain, for the first time, Muller et al.'s experimental observations. It is discovered that, unlike in the plasma core, the fluid Reynolds stress from turbulence is not sufficient for momentum transport physics in plasma edge. The "turbulent neoclassical" physics arising from the interaction between kinetic neoclassical orbit dynamics and plasma turbulence is key in the tokamak edge region across the plasma pedestal into core. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quasi-coherent (QC) modes, known as a type of the trapped electron mode (TEM) turbulence, have been measured in the outboard core region of low-density electron cyclotron resonant heating (ECH) injected and ohmically heated L-mode plasmas on the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) device. It appears that QC modes of 20–60 kHz occur or strengthen with an increase of the electron temperature to ion temperature ratio, but weaken or are fully suppressed by increased density/collisionality. Toroidal rotation shear, which is strongly related to the density/collisionality, also seems to stabilize the QC modes. Linear gyrokinetic simulations indicate that TEM is the most unstable mode at low densities where the QC modes are observed for both the ECH and ohmic plasmas. At high densities where the QC modes are suppressed, the most unstable mode is the ion temperature gradient (ITG) mode for the ECH plasmas but still TEM for the ohmic plasmas. In the ECH plasmas, it is found that the direction of the core toroidal intrinsic rotation is gradually reversed from the co-current to counter-current direction and the QC mode is suppressed as the line-averaged density increases, which can be explained by the transition of dominant micro-turbulence (TEM to ITG). However, in the ohmically heated plasmas, the acceleration of the core toroidal rotation is not fully explained by the TEM-ITG transition since the direction of the core toroidal rotation is counter-current direction when the QC mode is observed. Furthermore, the core toroidal rotation is accelerated to the counter-current direction even the line-averaged density decreases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]