A self-organized criticality model for ion temperature gradient mode driven turbulence in confined plasma
- Department of Physics, Section of Astrophysics, Astronomy, and Mechanics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Association Euratom--Hellenic Republic, GR-54124 Thessaloniki (Greece)
- National Technical University of Athens, Association Euratom--Hellenic Republic, GR-15773 Athens (Greece)
A new self-organized criticality (SOC) model is introduced in the form of a cellular automaton (CA) for ion temperature gradient (ITG) mode driven turbulence in fusion plasmas. Main characteristics of the model are that it is constructed in terms of the actual physical variable, the ion temperature, and that the temporal evolution of the CA, which necessarily is in the form of rules, mimics actual physical processes as they are considered to be active in the system, i.e., a heating process and a local diffusive process that sets on if a threshold in the normalized ITG R/L{sub T} is exceeded. The model reaches the SOC state and yields ion temperature profiles of exponential shape, which exhibit very high stiffness, in that they basically are independent of the loading pattern applied. This implies that there is anomalous heat transport present in the system, despite the fact that diffusion at the local level is imposed to be of a normal kind. The distributions of the heat fluxes in the system and of the heat out-fluxes are of power-law shape. The basic properties of the model are in good qualitative agreement with experimental results.
- OSTI ID:
- 21432208
- Journal Information:
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 17, Issue 8; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.3458668; (c) 2010 American Institute of Physics; ISSN 1070-664X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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