The effects of dilution on turbulence and transport in C-Mod ohmic plasmas and comparisons with gyrokinetic simulations

Main ion dilution has been predicted by gyrokinetic simulations to have a significant effect on ion thermal transport in C-Mod ohmic plasmas. This effect was verified experimentally with a specific set of experiments on C-Mod in which ohmic deuterium plasmas across the linear ohmic confinement (LOC) through the saturated ohmic confinement (SOC) regimes were diluted by seeding with nitrogen gas (Z = 7) injection. The seeding was observed to increase the normalized ion temperature gradients (ITGs) by up to 30% without a corresponding increase in the gyrobohm normalized ion energy flux, indicating a change in either the stiffness or the critical ion temperature gradient associated with ITG turbulence. The seeding also reversed the direction of the intrinsic toroidal rotation in plasmas slightly above the normal intrinsic rotation reversal critical density. GYRO simulations of the seeded and unseeded plasmas show that the seeding affected both the critical gradient and the stiffness. For plasmas in the LOC regime, the dilution primarily increased the critical gradient, while for plasmas in the SOC regime the dilution primarily decreased the stiffness. At r/a = 0.8, where the experimental fluxes were above marginal stability, local GYRO predicted and experimental energy fluxes agreed, except for Q(i) in the SOC regime where GYRO under-predicted the experimental energy flux. At r/a = 0.6, where the experimental fluxes were close to marginally stable, local GYRO predicted ITG modes to be strongly unstable and are responsible for both Q(i) and Q(e) (with Q(i) > Q(e)), as opposed to the experiment where Q(i) < Q(e). In contrast, global GYRO in this region predicted the ITG modes to be closer to marginal stability, and accurately predict the experimental Q(i) when the T-i profile is modified within experimental uncertainties. The fact that Q(e) is always less than Q(i) in the r/a = 0.6 simulations with k(0 rho s) <= 1 indicates that high-k electron temperature gradient driven (ETG) modes must be included in future simulations and may be responsible for the electron energy transport in this case. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.