Edge turbulence and anomalous transport in fusion plasmas

A view of the latest experimental results and progress in the characterization and understanding of edge turbulence is given. The development of new fluctuation analysis techniques has provided a new bridge between experimental measurements and theoretical turbulence models. At the same time, the characterization of fluctuations and turbulent transport has stimulated new experimental developments in the measurement of electron temperature fluctuations; it has been shown that substantial levels of electron temperature fluctuations are present in the boundary region of magnetically confined plasmas. Several driving (curvature, atomic physics,...) and damping (electric field) mechanisms of the edge turbulence have been investigated. The development of methods' to modify and control plasma turbulence and confinement appears as a very promising area of research. Recent results emphasize the importance of comparative studies between the structure of the turbulence in toroidal confinement systems to test critically edge turbulence models.