Universality of intermittent convective transport in the scrape-off layer of magnetically confined devices

The nature of intermittency, long observed in magnetic fusion devices, was revisited lately [G. Antar , Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 065001 (2001)]. It was shown that intermittency is caused by large-scale events with high radial velocity reaching about 1/10th of the sound speed. These type of structures were named avaloids. In the present article, the universality of convective turbulence in magnetically confined plasmas is investigated. Turbulence properties in the scrape-off layer of four different magnetic fusion devices are compared. Namely, the Tore Supra tokamak [Tore Supra Team, Nuclear Fusion, 40, 1047 (2000)] with circular cross-section limiter-bounded plasma, the Alcator C-Mod tokamak [B. LaBombard , Phys. Plasmas 8, 2107 (2001)] which is a divertor device, the Mega-Ampere Spherical Tokamak (MAST) [A. Sykes , Phys. Plasmas 8, 2101 (2001)] with vacuum chamber walls far from the plasma last closed flux surface and the PISCES linear plasma device [D. Geobel , Rev. Sci. Istrum. 56, 1717 (1985)]. The statistical properties of the turbulent signals in the four devices are found to be identical allowing us to conclude that intermittent convective transport by avaloids is universal in the sense that it occurs and has the same properties in many confinement devices with different configurations. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.