Validation study of GENE on ASDEX Upgrade using perturbative thermal diffusivity measured with partial sawtooth heat pulses

Perturbative thermal diffusivity is measured with partial sawtooth-generated heat pulses on ASDEX Upgrade for the first time, and these measurements are used to validate the first nonlinear ion-scale gyrokinetic simulation that agrees with experimentally measured perturbative diffusivity. Recent work on Alcator C-Mod (Howard et al 2016 Phys. Plasmas 23 056109) and DIII-D (Holland et al 2017 Nucl. Fusion 57 066043) has shown that ion-scale gyrokinetics cannot adequately describe certain plasma conditions, and that in these instances multi-scale simulations may resolve the observed discrepancies. This work presents the first measurements of electron perturbative thermal diffusivity with partial sawteeth on ASDEX Upgrade (measuring values between 2 and 9 m 2 s −1 ), and compares these measurements to those made with more established modulated electron cyclotron heating measurements, finding good agreement within experimental uncertainty. Perturbative diffusivity is found to scale inversely with collisionality across ASDEX Upgrade and Alcator C-Mod plasmas. Finally, perturbative diffusivity is used as a validation constraint in a study with the gyrokinetic code GENE, showing the first instance where an ion-scale gyrokinetic simulation can simultaneously match the experimental ion and electron heat fluxes and the perturbative thermal diffusivity. These results indicate that multi-scale effects may only be important in some plasmas, and the collisionality and ratio of high to low wavenumber linear growth rates may distinguish these cases.