Experimental progress on zonal flow physics in toroidal plasmas

Abstract

The present status of experiments on zonal flows in magnetic confinement experiments is examined. The innovative use of traditional and modern diagnostics has revealed unambiguously the existence of zonal flows, their spatio-temporal characteristics, their relationship to turbulence and their effects on confinement. In particular, a number of observations have been accumulated on the oscillatory branch of zonal flows, named geodesic acoustic modes, suggesting the necessity for theories to give their proper description. In addition to these basic properties of zonal flows, several new methods have elucidated the processes of zonal flow generation from turbulence. Further investigation of the relationship between zonal flows and confinement is strongly encouraged as cross-device activity including low temperature, toroidal and linear devices.