Damping of radial electric field fluctuations in the TJ-II stellarator

The drift kinetic equation is solved for low density TJ-II plasmas employing slowly varying, time-dependent profiles. This allows to simulate density ramp-up experiments and to describe from first principles the formation and physics of the radial electric field shear, which is associated to the transition from electron to ion root. We show that the range of frequencies of plasma potential fluctuations in which zonal flows are experimentally observed is neoclassically undamped in a neighborhood of the transition. This makes the electron root regime of stellarators, close to the transition to ion root, a propitious regime for the study of zonal-flow evolution. We present simulations of collisionless relaxation of zonal flows, in the sense of the Rosenbluth and Hinton test, that show an oscillatory behaviour in qualitative agreement with the experiment close to the transition.