Heat flux driven ion turbulence

This work is an analysis of an ion turbulence in a tokamak in the case where the thermal flux is fixed and the temperature profile is allowed to fluctuate. The system exhibits some features of self-organized critical systems. In particular, avalanches are observed. Also the frequency spectrum of the thermal flux exhibits a structure similar to the one of a sand pile automaton, including a 1/f behavior. However, the time average temperature profile is found to be supercritical, i.e., the temperature gradient stays above the critical value. Moreover, the heat diffusivity is not the same for a turbulence calculated at fixed flux than at fixed temperature gradient, with the same time averaged temperature. More precisely the diffusivity at fixed temperature is found to be larger in the edge and smaller close to the heat source. (C) 1998 American Institute of Physics.