A study of anomalous plasma transport by laboratory experiments and analysis of experimental and simulation data

This project is a cross-disciplinary effort with the purpose to work out tests of recently formulated paradigms for the description of turbulent transport in plasmas. Classical mixing length estimates for diffusive transport will be contrasted with predic tions based on the prevalence of intermittent bursts, giving rise to non-Gaussian statistics such as Extreme Value Distributions, Levy stable distributions and occurrence of long-range dependence due to critical fluctuations. Experimental turbulence data will be obtained by electric probe clusters from several magnetized plasma configurations in addition to data from a variety of computer models simulating turbulence and transport in magnetized plasmas. Such data will be analyzed by means of modern method s in statistical data analysis. The project involves collaboration with groups at Risø National Laboratory, and the universitites of Kiel, Nancy, and West-Virginia.