Poloidal flow generation by resistive pressure-gradient-driven turbulence

The radial structure of poloidal flows and radial electric fields in the tokamak plasma edge plays an important role in determining global confinement properties. In a turbulent plasma, poloidal flow can be generated through the Reynolds stress. At the same time, this poloidal flow controls the level of fluctuations. Thererfore, self-consistent calculations of plasma turbulence in the presence of flows are needed to identify the mechanism of confinement improvement. Here, we study the interaction. Linearly, both the shear flow, Vθ' ≠ O, and the curvature flow, Vθdouble-prime ≠ O, are stabilizing. Nonlinearly, the effect of the shear flow is weak, while the curvature flow is robust and survives in the nonlinear regime