Abstract
In the complex 3D magnetic fields of stellarators, ion-temperature-gradient turbulence is shown to have two distinct saturation regimes, as revealed by petascale numerical simulations and explained by a simple turbulence theory. The first regime is marked by strong zonal flows and matches previous observations in tokamaks. The newly observed second regime, in contrast, exhibits small-scale quasi-two-dimensional turbulence, negligible zonal flows, and, surprisingly, a weaker heat flux scaling. Our findings suggest that key details of the magnetic geometry control turbulence in stellarators.
- Received 18 November 2016
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.105002
© 2017 American Physical Society