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(TH1/1) Simulation of Ion-Temperature-Gradient Turbulence in Tokamaks

   
A. M. Dimits , B. I. Cohen , N. Mattor , W. M. Nevins , D. E. Shumaker 
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA 94551 USA
 
S. E. Parker , C. Kim 
University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309 USA

Abstract
Results are presented from nonlinear gyrokinetic simulations  of toroidal ion temperature gradient (ITG) turbulence and transport. The ion thermal fluxes are found to have an offset linear dependence on the temperature gradient and are significantly lower than gyrofluid or IFS-PPPL-model predictions. A new phenomenon of nonlinear effective critical gradients larger than the linear instability threshold gradients is observed, and is associated with undamped flux-surface-averaged shear flows. The nonlinear gyrokinetic codes have passed extensive tests which include comparison against independent linear calculations, a series of nonlinear convergence tests, and a comparison between two independent nonlinear gyrokinetic codes. Our most realistic simulations to date used actual reconstructed equilibria from experiments and a model for dilution by impurity and beam ions. These simulations highlight the importance of both self-generated and external $E\times B$ flow shear as well as the need for still more physics to be included.

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IAEA 1999