Gyrokinetic Studies on Turbulence-Driven and Neoclassical Nondiffusive Toroidal-Momentum Transport and the Effect of Residual Fluctuations in Strong $E\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}B$ Shear

Gyrokinetic Studies on Turbulence-Driven and Neoclassical Nondiffusive Toroidal-Momentum Transport and the Effect of Residual Fluctuations in Strong $E \times B$ Shear

W. X. Wang, T. S. Hahm, S. Ethier, G. Rewoldt, W. W. Lee, W. M. Tang, S. M. Kaye, and P. H. Diamond

Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 035005 – Published 23 January 2009

Abstract

A significant inward flux of toroidal momentum is found in global gyrokinetic simulations of ion temperature gradient turbulence, leading to core plasma rotation spin-up. The underlying mechanism is identified to be the generation of residual stress due to the $k_{∥}$ symmetry breaking induced by global quasistationary zonal flow shear. Simulations also show a significant off-diagonal element associated with the ion temperature gradient in the neoclassical momentum flux, while the overall neoclassical flux is small. In addition, the residual turbulence found in the presence of strong $E \times B$ flow shear may account for neoclassical-level ion heat and anomalous momentum transport widely observed in experiments.