Spectral characteristics of geodesic acoustic mode in the HL-2A tokamak

Abstract

The spectral characteristics of the geodesic acoustic mode (GAM) are investigated systematically by applying the two-point correlation technique and bispectral analysis to electric field fluctuations measured by electrostatic probe arrays on the HuanLiuqi-2A (HL-2A) tokamak. The three-dimensional wavenumber and frequency spectrum for the GAM has been measured for the first time. The spectrum provides definite evidence for the GAM which is characterized by kθ = k = 0 and krρi ≈ 0.04–0.09 with the full width at half maximum Δkrρi ≈ 0.03–0.07. The radial wavenumber spectrum shows that the localized GAM packet propagates in the outward direction with approximately the same phase and group velocity. The cross-bicoherences involving the Reynolds stress and auto-bicoherences of potential ( ), radial electric field ( ) and density ( ) fluctuations have been estimated for comparisons. Strong nonlinear coupling between the GAM and broadband turbulence is observed in all summed bicoherences, except for the summed auto-bicoherence of density fluctuations. All cross- and auto-bicoherences, except for the auto-bicoherence of density fluctuations, for interactions satisfying f1 + f2 = fGAM are found to have a peaked feature in the frequency range f1 < 100 kHz. This peaked feature might reflect the resonance property in the nonlinear coupling between the GAM and ambient turbulence.