Study of turbulence intermittency in linear magnetized plasma.

The intermittent behavior of a quasi-coherent density fluctuation is observed in a laboratory plasma. The quasi-coherent fluctuation is localized but intermittent events are observed in the whole region of plasma. Conditional averaging shows the intermittent events propagate from the central region of the magnetized plasma column to the peripheral region. Auto-correlation function of fluctuations and Hurst analysis reveal the intermittency is highly auto-correlated and the Hurst parameter reaches to 0.8, indicating the existence of self-similar behavior and long-range time correlation, and self-organized criticality dynamics might be the mechanism. Cross-bicoherence between different radii shows the nonlinear coupling between the quasi-coherent fluctuation and ambient turbulence, which will contribute to the generation of intermittency of turbulence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]