Density Peaking, Anomalous Pinch, and Collisionality in Tokamak Plasmas

Abstract

The existence of an anomalous particle pinch in magnetized tokamak plasmas is still questioned. Contradictory observations have been collected so far in tokamaks. Clear experimental evidence that density peaking in tokamak plasmas drops with increasing collisionality is provided for the first time. This phenomenon is explained by means of existing theoretical models based on the fluid description of drift wave instabilities, provided that such models include the dissipative effects introduced by collisions on the mentioned instabilities. These results reconcile the apparent contradictions found so far in the experiments.