Investigation of background edge thermal transport in ELMing and ELM-suppressed H-modes in DIII-D

Thermal diffusivities are inferred in the plasma edge of a matched pair of DIII-D [J. Luxon, Nucl. Fusion 42, 614 (2002)] high confinement mode discharges, one with edge localized modes (ELMs) present and the other with ELMs suppressed by resonant magnetic perturbations. These experimentally inferred thermal diffusivity profiles are compared with the predictions of a variety of thermal transport theories. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.