Impurity transport, turbulence transitions and intrinsic rotation in Alcator C-Mod plasmas

Howard, N. T.; White, A. E.; Greenwald, M.; Holland, C.; Candy, J.; Rice, J. E.

doi:10.1088/0741-3335/56/12/124004

Impurity transport, turbulence transitions and intrinsic rotation in Alcator C-Mod plasmas

Journal Article · Fri Nov 07 00:00:00 EST 2014 · Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0741-3335/56/12/124004· OSTI ID:1557618

Howard, N. T. ^[1]; White, A. E. ^[2]; Greenwald, M. ^[2]; Holland, C. ^[3]; Candy, J. ^[4]; Rice, J. E. ^[2]

Oak Ridge Inst. for Science and Education (ORISE), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI)
Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States). Plasma Science and Fusion Center
Univ. of California, San Diego, CA (United States)
General Atomics, San Diego, CA (United States)

Linear and nonlinear gyrokinetic simulations are used to probe turbulent impurity transport in intrinsically rotating tokamak plasmas. For this simulation-based study, experimental input parameters are taken from a pair of ICRF heated Alcator C-Mod discharges exhibiting a change in the sign of the normalized toroidal rotation gradient at mid-radius (i.e. a change from hollow to peaked intrinsic rotation profiles). The simulations show that there is no change in the peaking of the calcium impurity between the plasmas with peaked and hollow rotation profiles, suggesting that the impurity transport and the shape of the rotation do not always change together. Furthermore, near mid-radius, r/a = 0.5 (normalized midplane minor radius), the linear and nonlinear gyrokinetic simulations exhibit no evidence of a transition from ion temperature gradient (ITG) to trapped electron mode dominance when the intrinsic rotation profile changes from peaked to hollow. Finally, extensive nonlinear sensitivity analysis is performed, and there is no change in the ITG critical gradient or in the stiffness of ion heat transport with the change in the intrinsic toroidal rotation profile shape, which suggests that the shape of the rotation profile is not dominated by the ITG onset in these cases.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) (SC-24)

Grant/Contract Number:: FC02-99ER54512

OSTI ID:: 1557618

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 22362799

Journal Information:: Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion, Journal Name: Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion Journal Issue: 12 Vol. 56; ISSN 0741-3335

Publisher:: IOP ScienceCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Multispecies density peaking in gyrokinetic turbulence simulations of low collisionality Alcator C-Mod plasmas Mikkelsen, D. R.; Bitter, M.; Delgado-Aparicio, L. Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 22, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4922069	journal	June 2015
Validation metrics for turbulent plasma transport Holland, C. Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 23, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4954151	journal	June 2016
Main-ion intrinsic toroidal rotation across the ITG/TEM boundary in DIII-D discharges during ohmic and electron cyclotron heating Grierson, B. A.; Chrystal, C.; Haskey, S. R. Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 26, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5090505	journal	April 2019
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