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Observation and characterization of radially sheared zonal flows in DIII-D
- Source :
- Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion. 45:A477-A485
- Publication Year :
- 2003
- Publisher :
- IOP Publishing, 2003.
-
Abstract
- Zonal flows, thought crucial to the saturation and self-regulation of turbulence and turbulent transport in magnetically confined plasmas, have been observed and characterized in the edge region of DIII-D plasmas. These flows exhibit temperature scaling characteristics and spatial features predicted for geodesic acoustic modes (GAMs), a class of higher-frequency zonal flows seen in nonlinear simulations of plasma turbulence. The zonal flows (GAMs) have been observed in the turbulence flow-field in the radial region 0.85 ≤ r/a ≤ 1.0 via application of time-delay-estimation techniques to two-dimensional measurements of density fluctuations, obtained with beam emission spectroscopy. Spatial and temporal analysis of the resulting flow-field demonstrates the existence of a coherent oscillation (approximately 15 kHz) in the poloidal flow of density fluctuations that has a long poloidal wavelength, possibly m = 0, narrow radial extent (krρi < 0.2), and a frequency that varies monotonically with the local temperature. The approximate effective shearing rate, dvθ/d r, of the flow is of the same order of magnitude as the measured nonlinear decorrelation rate of the turbulence. These characteristics are consistent with predicted features of zonal flows, specifically identified as GAMs, observed in three-dimensional Braginskii simulations of core/edge turbulence.
- Subjects :
- Physics
DIII-D
Turbulence
K-epsilon turbulence model
Magnetic confinement fusion
Plasma
Condensed Matter Physics
Computational physics
Physics::Fluid Dynamics
Wavelength
Classical mechanics
Nuclear Energy and Engineering
Physics::Plasma Physics
Physics::Space Physics
Plasma diagnostics
Shear flow
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 13616587 and 07413335
- Volume :
- 45
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi...........65a81f0b745ca8d2d42d195b2774309d