Impurity profiles have been measured with the edge high field side (HFS) and low field side (LFS) charge exchange recombination spectroscopy suite at ASDEX Upgrade enabling the study of the poloidal structure of the edge parallel flow in H-mode, L-mode and I-mode. In H-mode, asymmetries in the impurity density, toroidal and poloidal rotations are found. In I-mode, only toroidal rotation asymmetries have been measured while in L-mode no asymmetries have been observed. The measured parallel flow can be divided in two components, the Pfirsch–Schlüter (PS) flow and the symmetric flow. Two different methods have been followed to determine both contributions to the parallel flow. The first method is based on the calculation of the PS flow at the HFS and LFS from the radial electric field. The second method directly provides the symmetric flow from the flux surface average (FSA) of the parallel flow. In H-mode, the methods provide different results, while in L-mode and I-mode they agree. The differences observed in H-mode between the two methods could be explained by the existence of asymmetries in the impurity density, by the non-negligible particle sources and radial losses, or by the approximations made in the calculation of the FSA of the parallel flow from measurements in two poloidal positions (midplane HFS and LFS) only.
This paper investigates the poloidal structure of the edge parallel flow in different plasma confinement regimes at ASDEX Upgrade. It shows that in H-mode, there are asymmetries in impurity density, toroidal and poloidal rotations, while in I-mode, only toroidal rotation asymmetries are observed, and in L-mode, no asymmetries are found. The parallel flow can be divided into Pfirsch-Schlüter and symmetric components, and the methods used to determine these components provide different results in H-mode, but agree in L-mode and I-mode.