DOI 10.1007/s13538-014-0259-x GENERAL AND APPLIED PHYSICS Dynamical Effects in Confined Plasma Turbulence

© Sociedade Brasileira de Fsica 2014 Abstract Plasma turbulence at the edge of tokamaks is an issue of major importance in the study of the anomalous transport of particles and energy. Although the behavior of a turbulent plasma seems intractable, it turns out that many of its aspects can be described by low-dimensional non-integrable dynamical models. In this paper, we consider a number of dynamical effects occurring in tokamak plasma edge—in particular the role of internal transport barriers. Furthermore, we present experimental results on turbulent-driven transport for two machines—the Brazilian TCABR tokamak and University of Texas ’ Helimak—that can be explained by those theoretical models. Dedicated to Professor Wendell Horton for his outstanding contri-butions to the nonlinear dynamics approach to plasma turbulence