The role of plasma elongation on the linear damping of zonal flows

Drift wave turbulence is known to self-organize to form axisymmetric macroscopic flows. The basic mechanism for macroscopic flow generation is called inverse energy cascade. Essentially, it is an energy transfer from the short wavelengths to the long wavelengths in the turbulent spectrum due to nonlinear interactions. A class of macroscopic flows, the poloidally symmetric zonal flows, is widely recognized as a key constituent in nearly all cases and regimes of microturbulence, also because of the realization that zonal flows are a critical agent of self-regulation for turbulent transport. In tokamaks and other toroidal magnetic confinement systems, axisymmetric flows exist in two branches, a zero frequency branch and a finite frequency branch, named Geodesic Acoustic Modes (GAMs). The finite frequency is due to the geodesic curvature of the magnetic field. There is a growing body of evidence that suggests strong GAM activity in most devices. Theoretical investigation of the GAMs is still an open field of research. Part of the difficulty of modelling the GAMs stems from the requirement of running global codes. Another issue is that one cannot determine a simple one to one relation between turbulence stabilization and GAM activity. This paper focuses on the study of ion temperature gradient turbulence in realistic tokamak magnetohydrodynamic equilibria. Analytical and numerical analyses are applied to the study of geometrical effects on zonal flows oscillations. Results are shown on the effects of the plasma elongation on the GAM amplitude and frequency and on the zonal flow residual amplitude. (c) 2008 American Institute of Physics.