Theoretical modeling of transport barriers in helical plasmas

A unified transport model is proposed to study the physical mechanism for the formation of electron internal transport barriers (e-ITB) in helical plasmas and internal diffusion barriers (IDB) observed in the Large Helical Device (LHD). An e-ITB can be predicted with the effect of zonal flows (ZFs) in the low collisional regime when the radial variation in particle turbulent diffusivity is included. The transport analysis in this article shows that particle fueling induces IDB formation when the unified transport model is used in the high collisional regime. After particle fueling, a steep density gradient forms. To examine the density limit for the IDB in helical toroidal plasmas, the effect of radiation loss is included in a set of transport equations. (author)