Plasma turbulence is considered one of the main mechanisms for driving anomalous thermal transport in magnetic confinement fusion devices. Based on first-principle model, gradient-driven gyrokinetic simulations have often been used to explain turbulence-driven transport in present fusion devices, and in fact, many present predictive codes are based on the assumption that turbulence is gradient-driven. However, using the electrostatic global particle-in-cell gyrokinetic tokamak simulation (GTS) code (Wang et al 2010 Phys. Plasmas17 072511), we will show that while global gradient-driven gyrokinetic simulations provide decent agreement in ion thermal transport with a set of NBI-heated NSTX (Ono et al 2000 Nucl. Fusion40 557) H-mode plasmas, they are not able to explain the observed electron thermal transport variation in a set of RF-heated L-mode plasmas, where a factor of 2 decrease in electron heat flux is observed after the cessation of the RF heating. Thus, identifying the regime of validity of the gradient-driven assumption is essential for first-principle gyrokinetic simulation. This understanding will help us to more confidently predict the confinement performance of ITER and future magnetic confinement devices.
Ion-temperature-gradient driven modes in pinch configurations within a linear gyrokinetic particle-in-cell simulation of ions and electrons