Shear-flow trapped-ion-mode interaction revisited. II. Intermittent transport associated with low-frequency zonal flow dynamics

Alain Ghizzo (1) , F. Palermo (2)

1 IJL - Institut Jean Lamour
2 ECL - École Centrale de Lyon

We address the mechanisms underlying low-frequency zonal flow generation in turbulent system and the associated intermittent regime of ion-temperature-gradient (ITG) turbulence. This model is in connection with the recent observation of quasi periodic zonal flow oscillation at a frequency close to 2 kHz, at the low-high transition, observed in the ASDEX Upgrade [Conway et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 065001 (2011)] and EAST tokamak [Xu et al., Phys. Rev. Lett 107, 125001 (2011)]. Turbulent bursts caused by the coupling of Kelvin-Helmholtz (KH) driven shear flows with trapped ion modes (TIMs) were investigated by means of reduced gyrokinetic simulations. It was found that ITG turbulence can be regulated by low-frequency meso-scale zonal flows driven by resonant collisionless trapped ion modes (CTIMs), through parametric-type scattering, a process in competition with the usual KH instability.

Domaines: Physique des plasmas [physics.plasm-ph]

Alain Ghizzo, F. Palermo. Shear-flow trapped-ion-mode interaction revisited. II. Intermittent transport associated with low-frequency zonal flow dynamics. Physics of Plasmas, 2015, 22 (8), pp.82304 - 82304. ⟨10.1063/1.4928103⟩. ⟨hal-01285765⟩