Intermittent transport in edge plasmas

Garcia, Odd Erik; Naulin, Volker; Nielsen, Anders Henry; Rasmussen, Jens Juul

Intermittent transport in edge plasmas

Authors

Garcia, Odd Erik

Naulin, Volker

Nielsen, Anders Henry

Rasmussen, Jens Juul

Description

The properties of low-frequency convective fluctuations and transport are investigated for the boundary region of magnetized plasmas. We employ a two-dimensional fluid model for the evolution of the global plasma quantities in a geometry and with parameters relevant to the scrape-off layer of confined toroidal plasmas. Strongly intermittent plasma transport is regulated by self-consistently generated sheared poloidal flows and is mediated by bursty ejection of particles and heat from the bulk plasma in the form of blobs. Coarse grained probe signals reveal a highly skewed and flat distribution on short time scales, but tends towards a normal distribution at large time scales. Conditionally averaged signals are in perfect agreement with experimental measurements.
12th International Congress on Plasma Physics, 25-29 October 2004, Nice (France)