Transport through dissipative trapped electron mode and toroidal ion temperature gradient mode in TEXTOR

A self-consistent transport code is used to evaluate how plasma confinement in tokamaks is influenced by the microturbulent fields which are excited by the dissipative trapped electron (DTE) instability. As shown previously, the saturation theory on which the code is based has been developed from first principles. The toroidal coupling resulting from the ion magnetic drifts is neglected; arguments are presented to justify this approximation. The numerical results reproduce well the neo-Alcator scaling law observed experimentally - e.g. in TEXTOR - in non detached ohmic discharges, the confinement degradation which results when auxiliary heating is applied, as well as a large number of other experimental observations. We also assess the possible impact of the toroidal ion temperature gradient mode on energy confinement by estimating the ion thermal flux with the help of the mixing length approximation. (orig./GG)