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On the validity of the local diffusive paradigm in turbulent plasma transport

G. Dif-Pradalier, P. H. Diamond, V. Grandgirard, Y. Sarazin, J. Abiteboul, X. Garbet, Ph. Ghendrih, A. Strugarek, S. Ku, and C. S. Chang
Phys. Rev. E 82, 025401(R) – Published 3 August 2010

Abstract

A systematic, constructive and self-consistent procedure to quantify nonlocal, nondiffusive action at a distance in plasma turbulence is exposed and applied to turbulent heat fluxes computed from the state-of-the-art full-f, flux-driven gyrokinetic GYSELA and XGC1 codes. A striking commonality is found: heat transport below a dynamically selected mesoscale has the structure of a Lévy distribution, is strongly nonlocal, nondiffusive, scale-free, and avalanche mediated; at larger scales, we report the observation of a self-organized flow structure which we call the “E×B staircase” after its planetary analog.

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  • Received 31 October 2009

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.82.025401

©2010 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

G. Dif-Pradalier* and P. H. Diamond

  • Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences, UCSD, La Jolla, California 92093, USA

V. Grandgirard, Y. Sarazin, J. Abiteboul, X. Garbet, Ph. Ghendrih, and A. Strugarek

  • CEA, IRFM, F-13108 Saint-Paul-lez-Durance, France

S. Ku and C. S. Chang

  • Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University, New York, New York 10012, USA

  • *gdifpradalier@ucsd.edu

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Vol. 82, Iss. 2 — August 2010

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