Lagrangian features of turbulent transport in tokamak plasmas

Abstract: This study investigates the Lagrangian properties of ion turbulent transport driven by drift-type turbulence in tokamak plasmas. Despite the compressible and inhomogeneous nature of Eulerian gyrocenter drifts, numerical simulations with the T3ST code reveal approximate ergodicity, stationarity, and time-symmetry. These characteristics are attributed to broad initial phase-space distributions that support ergodic mixing. Moreover, relatively minor constraints on the initial distributions are found to have negligible effects on transport levels.