Electron temperature critical gradient and transport stiffness in DIII-D
- General Atomics, San Diego, CA (United States)
- Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
- Univ. of California, San Diego, CA (United States)
- Fourth State Research, Austin, TX (United States)
- Univ. of Texas, Austin, TX (United States)
- Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States)
The electron energy flux has been probed as a function of electron temperature gradient on the DIII-D tokamak, in a continuing effort to validate turbulent transport models. In the scan of gradient, a critical electron temperature gradient has been found in the electron heat fluxes and stiffness at various radii in L-mode plasmas. The TGLF reduced turbulent transport model [G.M. Staebler et al, Phys. Plasmas 14, 055909 (2007)] and full gyrokinetic GYRO model [J. Candy and R.E. Waltz, J. Comput. Phys. 186, 545 (2003)] recover the general trend of increasing electron energy flux with increasing electron temperature gradient scale length, but they do not predict the absolute level of transport at all radii and gradients. Comparing the experimental observations of incremental (heat pulse) diffusivity and stiffness to the models’ reveals that TGLF reproduces the trends in increasing diffusivity and stiffness with increasing electron temperature gradient scale length with a critical gradient behavior. Furthermore, the critical gradient of TGLF is found to have a dependence on q95, contrary to the independence of the experimental critical gradient from q95.
- Research Organization:
- General Atomics, San Diego, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- FC02-04ER54698; FC02-99ER54512; FG02-08ER54871; FG02-08ER54984; FG03-97ER54415
- OSTI ID:
- 1345509
- Alternate ID(s):
- OSTI ID: 1238892
- Journal Information:
- Nuclear Fusion, Vol. 55, Issue 8; ISSN 0029-5515
- Publisher:
- IOP ScienceCopyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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