A. G. Peeters

Chapter 2: Plasma confinement and transport

The understanding and predictive capability of transport physics and plasma confinement is reviewed from the perspective of achieving reactor-scale burning plasmas in the ITER tokamak, for both core and edge plasma regions. Very considerable progress has been made in understanding, controlling and predicting tokamak transport across a wide variety of plasma conditions and regimes since the publication of the ITER Physics Basis (IPB) document (1999 Nucl. Fusion 39 2137-2664). Major areas of progress considered here follow. (1) Substantial improvement in the physics content, capability and reliability of transport simulation and modelling codes, leading to much increased theory/experiment interaction as these codes are increasingly used to interpret and predict experiment. (2) Remarkable progress has been made in developing and understanding regimes of improved core confinement. Internal transport barriers and other forms of reduced core transport are now routinely obtained in all the leading tokamak devices worldwide. (3) The importance of controlling the H-mode edge pedestal is now generally recognized. Substantial progress has been made in extending high confinement H-mode operation to the Greenwald density, the demonstration of Type I ELM mitigation and control techniques and systematic explanation of Type I ELM stability. Theory-based predictive capability has also shown progress by integrating the plasma and neutral transport with MHD stability. (4) Transport projections to ITER are now made using three complementary approaches: empirical or global scaling, theory-based transport modelling and dimensionless parameter scaling (previously, empirical scaling was the dominant approach). For the ITER base case or the reference scenario of conventional ELMy H-mode operation, all three techniques predict that ITER will have sufficient confinement to meet its design target of Q = 10 operation, within similar uncertainties.

Experiments on neoclassical tearing mode stabilization by ECCD in ASDEX Upgrade

The reduction of neoclassical tearing modes by ECCD is demonstrated experimentally. It is shown that with an averaged ECCD power of only 4-8% of the total heating power injected into the discharge, the island width can be reduced by 40%, provided that the centre of deposition is very close to the resonant surface. The reduction in mode amplitude results in a partial recovery of the loss of stored energy induced by the mode. This experimental result is well reproduced by modelling calculations.

TORBEAM, a beam tracing code for electron-cyclotron waves in tokamak plasmas

The beam tracing technique is used to describe the propagation and absorption of Gaussian wave beams with frequencies in the electron-cyclotron frequency range in a fusion plasma. Like in the standard ray tracing method, Maxwells equations are reduced to a set of first-order ordinary differential equation. The technique employed here, however, allows for diffraction effects, neglected by the geometrical-optics procedure. The beam is specified in terms of the trajectory of the beam axis, the evolution of both the curvature of the wave front and the width of the field profile, as well as the absorption of the wave energy by the plasma. A Fortran code is presented, which solves the beam tracing equations in a tokamak geometry for arbitrary launching conditions and for both analytic and experimentally prescribed magnetic equilibria. Examples of wave propagation, power deposition and current profiles are computed and compared with ray tracing results.

Linear gyrokinetic calculations of toroidal momentum transport in a tokamak due to the ion temperature gradient mode

It is shown from a symmetry in the gyrokinetic equation that for up–down symmetric tokamak equilibria and for uϕ⪢ρυthi∕r (where uϕ is the toroidal velocity, υthi is the thermal ion velocity, ρ is the Larmor radius, and r is the radius of the flux surface), the transport of parallel momentum can be written as the sum of a diffusive and a pinch contribution with no off-diagonal terms due to temperature and pressure gradients. The measured parallel velocity gradient in ASDEX Upgrade [O. Gruber, H.-S. Bosch, S. Gunter et al., Nucl. Fusion 39, 1321 (1999)] is insufficient to drive the parallel velocity shear instability. The parallel velocity is then transported by the ion temperature gradient mode. The diffusive contribution to the transport flux is investigated using a linear gyrokinetic approach, and it is found that the diffusion coefficient for parallel velocity transport divided by the ion heat conductivity coefficient is close to 1, and only weakly dependent on plasma parameters.

Overview of toroidal momentum transport

Toroidal momentum transport mechanisms are reviewed and put in a broader perspective. The generation of a finite momentum flux is closely related to the breaking of symmetry (parity) along the field. The symmetry argument allows for the systematic identification of possible transport mechanisms. Those that appear to lowest order in the normalized Larmor radius (the diagonal part, Coriolis pinch, E x B shearing, particle flux, and up-down asymmetric equilibria) are reasonably well understood. At higher order, expected to be of importance in the plasma edge, the theory is still under development.

Physics of transport in tokamaks

This paper is an overview of recent results relating to turbulent particle and heat transport, and to the triggering of internal transport barriers (ITBs). The dependence of the turbulent particle pinch velocity on plasma parameters has been clarified and compared with experiment. Magnetic shear and collisionality are found to play a central role. Analysis of heat transport has made progress along two directions: dimensionless scaling laws, which are found to agree with the prediction for electrostatic turbulence, and analysis of modulation experiments, which provide a stringent test of transport models. Finally the formation of ITBs has been addressed by analysing electron transport barriers. It is confirmed that negative magnetic shear, combined with the Shafranov shift, is a robust stabilizing mechanism. However, some well established features of internal barriers are not explained by theory.

Consequences of profile shearing on toroidal momentum transport

Turbulent transport of toroidal momentum is investigated in global linear gyrokinetic simulations. The poloidal tilt of the global mode structure arising from the radial variation of the equilibrium (profile shearing) is shown to induce non-diagonal non-pinch momentum transport (residual stress). Local simulations performed at finite radial wave vector show that the effect is mainly due to the antisymmetric radial component of the magnetic drift. The residual stress resulting from profile shearing enhances co-current rotation for ion temperature gradient turbulence and counter-current rotation for trapped electron mode turbulence. (Some figures in this article are in colour only in the electronic version)

Particle transport in tokamak plasmas, theory and experiment

The physical processes producing electron particle transport in the core of tokamak plasmas are described. Starting from the gyrokinetic equation, a simple analytical derivation is used as guidance to illustrate the main mechanisms driving turbulent particle convection. A review of the experimental observations on particle transport in tokamaks is presented and the consistency with the theoretical predictions is discussed. An overall qualitative agreement, and in some cases even a specific quantitative agreement, emerges between complex theoretical predictions and equally complex experimental observations, exhibiting different dependences on plasma parameters under different regimes. By these results, the direct connection between macroscopic transport properties and the character of microscopic turbulence is pointed out, and an important confirmation of the paradigm of microinstabilities and turbulence as the main cause of transport in the core of tokamaks is obtained. Finally, the impact of these results on the prediction of the peaking of the electron density profile in a fusion reactor is illustrated.

Influence of the centrifugal force and parallel dynamics on the toroidal momentum transport due to small scale turbulence in a tokamak

The paper derives the gyro-kinetic equation in the comoving frame of a toroidally rotating plasma, including both the Coriolis drift effect [A. G. Peeters et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 265003 (2007)] as well as the centrifugal force. The relation with the laboratory frame is discussed. A low field side gyro-fluid model is derived from the gyro-kinetic equation and applied to the description of parallel momentum transport. The model includes the effects of the Coriolis and centrifugal force as well as the parallel dynamics. The latter physics effect allows for a consistent description of both the Coriolis drift effect as well as the ExB shear effect [R. R. Dominguez and G. M. Staebler, Phys. Fluids B 5, 3876 (1993)] on the momentum transport. Strong plasma rotation as well as parallel dynamics reduce the Coriolis (inward) pinch of momentum and can lead to a sign reversal generating an outward pinch velocity. Also, the ExB shear effect is, in a similar manner, reduced by the parallel dynamics and stronger rotation.

Density response to central electron heating: theoretical investigations and experimental observations in ASDEX Upgrade

Theory of ion temperature gradient (ITG) and trapped electron modes (TEMs) is applied to the study of particle transport in experimental conditions with central electron heating. It is shown that in the unstable domain of TEMs, the electron thermodiffusive flux is directed outwards. By means of such a flux, a mechanism is identified likely to account for density flattening with central electron heating. Theoretical predictions are compared with experimental observations in ASDEX Upgrade. A parameter domain (including L- and H-mode plasmas) is identified, in which flattening with central electron heating is observed in the experiments. In general, this domain turns out to be the same domain in which the dominant plasma instability is a TEM. On the contrary, the dominant instability is an ITG in plasmas whose density profile is not affected significantly by central electron heating. The flattening predicted by quasi-linear theory for low density L-mode plasmas is too small compared to the experimental observations. At very high density, even when the dominant instability is an ITG, electron heating can provide density flattening, via the coupling with the ion heat channel. In these conditions the anomalous diffusivity increases in response to the increased ion heat flux, while the large collisionality makes the anomalous pinch small and the Ware pinch important.