Edge turbulence imaging in the Alcator C-Mod tokamak

The two-dimensional (2D) radial vs poloidal structure of edge turbulence in the Alcator C-Mod tokamak [I. H. Hutchinson, R. Boivin, P. T. Bonoli et al., Nucl. Fusion 41, 1391 (2001)] was measured using fast cameras and compared with three-dimensional numerical simulations of edge plasma turbulence. The main diagnostic is gas puff imaging, in which the visible Dα emission from a localized D2 gas puff is viewed along a local magnetic field line. The observed Dα fluctuations have a typical radial and poloidal scale of ≈1 cm, and often have strong local maxima (“blobs”) in the scrape-off layer. The motion of this 2D structure motion has also been measured using an ultrafast framing camera with 12 frames taken at 250 000 frames/s. Numerical simulations produce turbulent structures with roughly similar spatial and temporal scales and transport levels as that observed in the experiment; however, some differences are also noted, perhaps requiring diagnostic improvement and/or additional physics in the numerical model.