Investigation of the transport shortfall in Alcator C-Mod L-mode plasmas
- MIT-Plasma Science and Fusion Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 (United States)
- University of California-San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093 (United States)
- General Atomics, PO Box 85608, San Diego, California 92186 (United States)
- Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, EURATOM Association, Boltzmannstr. 2, 85748 Garching (Germany)
A so-called 'transport shortfall,' where ion and electron heat fluxes and turbulence are underpredicted by gyrokinetic codes, has been robustly identified in DIII-D L-mode plasmas for {rho}>0.55[T. L. Rhodes et al., Nucl. Fusion 51(6), 063022 (2011); and C. Holland et al., Phys. Plasmas 16(5), 052301 (2009)]. To probe the existence of a transport shortfall across different tokamaks, a dedicated scan of auxiliary heated L-mode discharges in Alcator C-Mod are studied in detail with nonlinear gyrokinetic simulations for the first time. Two discharges, only differing by the amount of auxiliary heating are investigated using both linear and nonlinear simulation of the GYRO code [J. Candy and R. E. Waltz, J. Comput. Phys. 186, 545 (2003)]. Nonlinear gyrokinetic simulation of the low and high input power discharges reveals a discrepancy between simulation and experiment in only the electron heat flux channel of the low input power discharge. However, both discharges demonstrate excellent agreement in the ion heat flux channel, and the high input power discharge demonstrates simultaneous agreement with experiment in both the electron and ion heat flux channels. A summary of linear and nonlinear gyrokinetic results and a discussion of possible explanations for the agreement/disagreement in each heat flux channel is presented.
- OSTI ID:
- 22107689
- Journal Information:
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 20, Issue 3; Other Information: (c) 2013 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1070-664X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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