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Title: Nonlinear gyrokinetic simulations of the I-mode high confinement regime and comparisons with experimenta)

Journal Article · · Physics of Plasmas
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4921150· OSTI ID:1547007

For the first time, nonlinear gyrokinetic simulations of I-mode plasmas are performed and compared with experiment. I-mode is a high confinement regime, featuring energy confinement similar to H-mode, but without enhanced particle and impurity particle confinement [D. G. Whyte et al., Nucl. Fusion 50, 105005 (2010)]. As a consequence of the separation between heat and particle transport, I-mode exhibits several favorable characteristics compared to H-mode. The nonlinear gyrokinetic code GYRO [J. Candy and R. E. Waltz, J Comput. Phys. 186, 545 (2003)] is used to explore the effects of E × B shear and profile stiffness in I-mode and compare with L-mode. The nonlinear GYRO simulations show that I-mode core ion temperature and electron temperature profiles are more stiff than L-mode core plasmas. Scans of the input E × B shear in GYRO simulations show that E × B shearing of turbulence is a stronger effect in the core of I-mode than L-mode. The nonlinear simulations match the recorded reductions in long wavelength density fluctuation levels across the L-I transition but underestimate the reduction of long wavelength electron temperature fluctuation levels. The comparisons between experiment and gyrokinetic simulations for I-mode indicate that increased E × B shearing of turbulence combined with increased profile stiffness are responsible for the reductions in core turbulence observed in the experiment, and that I-mode resembles H-mode plasmas more than L-mode plasmas with regards to marginal stability and temperature profile stiffness.

Research Organization:
Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Fusion Energy Sciences (FES)
Grant/Contract Number:
FC02-99ER54512; FC02-99ER54512-CMOD
OSTI ID:
1547007
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1228229
Journal Information:
Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 22, Issue 5; ISSN 1070-664X
Publisher:
American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 16 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (7)

Multispecies density peaking in gyrokinetic turbulence simulations of low collisionality Alcator C-Mod plasmas journal June 2015
Validation metrics for turbulent plasma transport journal June 2016
Correlation electron cyclotron emission diagnostic and improved calculation of turbulent temperature fluctuation levels on ASDEX Upgrade journal May 2018
Verification of GENE and GYRO with L-mode and I-mode plasmas in Alcator C-Mod journal April 2018
Gyrokinetic investigation of the ASDEX Upgrade I-mode pedestal journal December 2019
VITALS: A Surrogate-Based Optimization Framework for the Accelerated Validation of Plasma Transport Codes journal February 2018
Self-consistent core-pedestal transport simulations with neural network accelerated models journal July 2017

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