Gyrokinetic Analyses of Core Heat Transport in JT-60U Plasmas with Different Toroidal Rotation Direction

Tokamak plasmas with an internal transport barrier (ITB) are capable of maintaining improved confinement performance. The ITBs formed in plasmas with the weak magnetic shear and the weak radial electric field shear are often observed to be modest. In these ITB plasmas, it has been found that the electron temperature ITB is steeper when toroidal rotation is in a co-direction with respect to the plasma current than when toroidal rotation is in a counter-direction. To clarify the relationship between the direction of toroidal rotation and heat transport in the ITB region, we examine dominant instabilities using the flux-tube gyrokinetic code GS2. The linear calculations show a difference in the real frequencies; the counter-rotation case has a more trapped electron mode than the co-rotation case. In addition, the nonlinear calculations show that with this difference, the ratio of the electron heat diffusivity χe to the ion's χi is higher for the counter-rotation case than for the co-rotation case. The difference in χe /χi agrees with the experiment. We also find that the effect of the difference in the flow shear between the two cases due to the toroidal rotation direction on the linear growth rate is not significant.