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(TH/1-1) Size Scaling of Turbulent Transport in Tokamak Plasmas

Zhihong Lin¹⁾, T.S. Hahm¹, S. Ethier¹, W.W. Lee¹, J. Lewandowski¹, G. Rewoldt¹, W.M. Tang¹, W.X. Wang¹, L. Chen², P.H. Diamond³,
 
¹⁾ Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Princeton, USA
²⁾ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA
³⁾ Department of Physics, University of California, San Diego, CA, USA

Abstract.  Transport scaling with respect to tokamak device size is critically examined for electrostatic ion temperature gradient (ITG) turbulence with adiabatic electrons using first-principles gyrokinetic particle simulations, which use up to one billion particles to address realistic parameters of reactor-grade plasmas. Results of these large scale simulations, varying $\rho^{\ast}$ (ion gyroradius normalized by tokamak minor radius) while keeping other dimensionless plasma parameters fixed, show that the fluctuation scale length is microscopic and transport is diffusive in the presence of zonal flows. The local transport coefficient exhibits a gradual transition from a Bohm-like scaling for device sizes corresponding to present-day tokamak experiments to a gyro-Bohm scaling for future larger devices. The device size where this transition occurs is much larger than that expected from linear ITG theory for profile variations. Our simulations include a heat bath/source to prevent profile relaxation and are in the strong turbulence regime far away from ITG marginality. The effects of kinetic electrons on electrostatic ITG-TEM (trapped electron mode) driven turbulence will also be presented.

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