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Core and edge turbulence measurements in wide pedestal quiescent H-mode plasmas without power degradation of energy confinement

POSTER

Abstract

Wide pedestal quiescent H-mode plasmas at the DIII-D tokamak have shown insensitivity of the energy confinement time to the heating power (PNBI). In an earlier work, we have shown that the lack of power degradation of confinement in these plasmas is due to the formation of ion internal transport barriers (ITB) and thus, to the increased stored energy as PNBI increased. Flux-matched TGLF analysis via TGYRO predicts that the ITB is stabilized by E×B shear, Ti/Te ratio and at the high PNBI, by the Shafranov shift. Here, we document the core and edge fluctuation measurements for these plasmas measured by the turbulence diagnostics. Density fluctuations measured by the multichannel CO2 interferometer show a decrease inside ITB. Within the pedestal, low-k turbulence measured by beam emission spectroscopy (BES) shows reduction in density fluctuations as PNBI increased, while the BES measurements in the pedestal-top show an opposite trend. Additionally, intermediate-k turbulence measured by the Doppler backscattering diagnostic shows reduction in density fluctuations. However, magnetic fluctuations increase in amplitude. Preliminary gyrokinetic simulations and comparison to transport fingerprints suggests electrostatic transport. Details of the measurements and their comparisons with simulations will be presented.

Publication: Houshmandyar et. al., Nucl. Fusion 62, 056024 (2022)

Presenters

  • Saeid Houshmandyar

    University of Texas at Austin

Authors

  • Saeid Houshmandyar

    University of Texas at Austin

  • Keith H Burrell

    General Atomics - San Diego

  • Michael R Halfmoon

    University of Texas at Austin

  • Rongjie Hong

    UCLA, University of California, Los Angeles

  • Zheng Yan

    University of Wisconsin - Madison, University of Wisconsin-Madison

  • G. R McKee

    University of Wisconsin - Madison, University of Wisconsin, Madison

  • Michael Van Zeeland

    General Atomics - San Diego, General Atomics

  • David R Hatch

    University of Texas at Austin, UT-Austin

  • Max E Austin

    University of Texas at Austin, University of Texas Austin