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Identification of Zonal Flows in a Toroidal Plasma

2004; American Physical Society; Volume: 93; Issue: 16 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1103/physrevlett.93.165002

1092-0145

A. Fujisawa, K. Itoh, H. Iguchi, K. Matsuoka, S. Okamura, A. Shimizu, T. Minami, Y. Yoshimura, K. Nagaoka, C. Takahashi, M. Kojima, H. Nakano, S Ohsima, Satoshi Nishimura, M. Isobe, C. Suzuki, Tsuyoshi Akiyama, K. Ida, K. Toi, S.‐I. Itoh, P. H. Diamond,

Solar and Space Plasma Dynamics

This Letter presents experimental confirmation of the presence of zonal flows in magnetically confined toroidal plasma using an advanced diagnostic system--dual heavy ion beam probes. The simultaneous observation of an electric field at two distant toroidal locations (approximately 1.5 m apart) in the high temperature (approximately 1 keV) plasma provides a fluctuation spectrum of electric field (or flow), a spatiotemporal structure of the zonal flows (characteristic radial length of approximately 1.5 cm and lifetime of approximately 1.5 ms), their long-range correlation with toroidal symmetry (n=0), and the difference in the zonal flow amplitude with and without a transport barrier. These constitute essential elements of turbulence-zonal flow systems, and illustrate one of the fundamental processes of structure formation in nature.