Plasma networking in magnetically confined plasmas and diagnostics of nonlocal heat transport in tokamak filamentary plasmas

The method of multilevel dynamical contrasting is applied to analyzing available data from tokamak plasmas. The results illustrate a possibility of extending the concept of the plasma percolating networks in dense Z pinches (and other inertially confined plasmas) to the case of magnetically confined plasmas. This extension suggests a necessity to append the conventional picture of the nonfilamentary plasma (which is nearly a fluid described by conventional magnetohydrodynamics! with a "network'' component which is formed by the strongest long-living filaments of electric current and penetrate the "fluid'' component. Signs of networking are found in visible light and soft x-ray images, and magnetic probing data. A diagnostic algorithm is formulated for identifying the role of plasma networking in observed phenomena of nonlocal (nondiffusive) heat transport in a tokamak. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S0034-6748(99)60901-7].