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The three-dimensional characteristics of the geodesic acoustic mode zonal flows (GAMZFs) and the ambient turbulence (AT) at the edge of the HuanLiuqi-2A tokamak [Y. Liu et al., Nucl. Fusion 45, S203 (2005)] are investigated with Langmuir probe arrays and the results are presented in detail. The toroidal and poloidal symmetries, and the radial scale of the GAMZFs are simultaneously identified. The envelopes of the high frequency components of the AT in the presence of the GAMZFs are analyzed. The GAM frequency components (GAMFCs) of the coherent envelopes are also shown to have poloidal and toroidal symmetries, and similar radial scales as the GAMZF does. The correlation between the GAMFCs of the envelopes and the GAMs is high, with phase shifts between π/2 to π, indicating that the GAMZFs may regulate the AT and the regulation is embodied in the envelopes. Three-wave coupling between GAM and AT is found to be a plausible formation mechanism for the former, which acts on the whole spectra of the latter within its scale length. The temporal evolutions of the total fluctuation power, the GAM and the AT powers show that the AT power decreases when GAM power increases and vice versa, indicating possible regulating effects of the latter on the former. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The absolute rate of nonlinear energy transfer among broadband turbulence, low-frequency zonal flows (ZFs) and geodesic acoustic modes (GAMs) was measured for the first time in fusion-grade plasmas using two independent methods across a range of heating powers. The results show that turbulent kinetic energy from intermediate frequencies (20-80 kHz) was transferred into ZFs and GAMs, as well as into fluctuations at higher frequencies (> 80 kHz). As the heating power was increased, the energy transfer from turbulence into GAMs and the GAM amplitudes increased, peaked and then decreased, while the energy transfer into the ZFs and the ZFs themselves increased monotonically with heating power. Thus there exists a competition between ZFs and GAMs for the transfer of turbulent energy, and the transfer into ZFs becomes dominant as the heating power is increased. The poloidal-radial Reynolds stress and the mean radial electric field profiles were also measured at different heating powers and found to be consistent with the energy transfer measurement. The results suggest that ZFs play an important role in the low-to-high (JL-H) plasma confinement transition [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]