Abstract. A new classical non-ambipolar transport mechanism has been identified which can be a dominant source of strong Er and edge pedestal layer formation immediately inside the separatrix in a diverted tokamak. Due to vanishingly small poloidal B-field and grad-B drift toward x-point, plasma ions with small v| in the X-region do not have confined single particle orbits. This leads to a non-ambipolar convective transport in the X-region (X-transport), either collisional or collisionless, inducing a strong negative Er-shear layer. The X-transport can provide basic understanding of many of the experimental observations.
IAEA 2001