Observation of self-organized criticality (SOC) behavior during edge biasing experiment on TEXTOR

Abstract

The self-organized criticality (SOC) behavior of the edge plasma transport has been investigated using the fluctuation data measured in the plasma edge and the scrape-off layer of TEXTOR tokamak before and during the edge electrode biasing experiments. In the "nonshear" discharge phase before biasing, both the potential and density fluctuations clearly exhibit some of the characteristics associated with SOC: (1) existence of f -1 power-law dependence in the frequency spectrum, (2) slowly decaying long tails in the autocorrelation function, (3) values of Hurst parameters larger than 0.5 at all the detected radial locations, (4) non-Gaussian PDF of fluctuations and (5) radial propagation of avalanche-like events in the edge plasma area. During the biasing phase, with the generation of an edge radial electric field Er and hence a sheared ErxB flow, the local turbulence is found to be well decorrelated by the ErxB velocity shear, consistent with theoretical predictions. Nevertheless, it is concomitantly found that the Hurst parameters are substantially enhanced in the negative flow shear region and in the scrape-off layer as well, which is contrary to theoretical expectation. Implication of these observations to our understanding of plasma transport mechanisms is discussed.