Poloidal rotation near the edge of a tokamak plasma in<i>H</i>mode

Ion poloidal flow in tokamaks near the plasma edge has been calculated by extending neoclassical theory to include orbit squeezing, which is the reduction of the ion banana widths due to the gradient in the radial electric field. The calculated poloidal flow velocity is a significant fraction of the ion diamagnetic velocity, which can be much larger than the velocity predicted by neoclassical theory (proportional to the ion temperature gradient). The agreement with spectroscopic measurements of the poloidal rotation velocity in helium plasmas in the DIII-D tokamak is shown to be reasonably good very close to the plasma edge.