Anomalous Convection Reversal due to Turbulence Transition in Tokamak Plasmas

A critical physical model, based on the ion temperature gradient (ITG) mode and the trapped electron mode (TEM), trying to explain the spatio-temporal dynamics of anomalous particle convection reversal (i.e., the particle convective flux reverses from inward to outward), is developed numerically. The dependence of density peaking and profile shape on the particle convection is studied. Only the inward pinch could lead to the increase of the density peaking. The validation of the critical model is also analyzed. A comparison of the estimates calculated by the model and the experimental results from the Tore Supra tokamak shows that they are qualitatively both consistent.