Multiscale gyrokinetic turbulence simulations with the real ion-to-electron mass ratio and β value are realized for the first time, where the β value is given by the ratio of plasma pressure to magnetic pressure and characterizes electromagnetic effects on microinstabilities. Numerical analysis at both the electron scale and the ion scale is used to reveal the mechanism of their cross-scale interactions. Even with the real-mass scale separation, ion-scale turbulence eliminates electron-scale streamers and dominates heat transport, not only of ions but also of electrons. Suppression of electron-scale turbulence by ion-scale eddies, rather than by long-wavelength zonal flows, is also demonstrated by means of direct measurement of nonlinear mode-to-mode coupling. When the ion-scale modes are stabilized by finite-β effects, the contribution of the electron-scale dynamics to the turbulent transport becomes non-negligible and turns out to enhance ion-scale turbulent transport. Damping of the ion-scale zonal flows by electron-scale turbulence is responsible for the enhancement of ion-scale transport.

Global characteristics of the coupled system of zonal flows and electromagnetic ion temperature gradient driven turbulence in tokamak plasmas are investigated using a global electromagnetic Landau fluid code. Zonal flow behavior changes with the safety factor q. In a low q region stationary zonal flows are excited and they suppress the turbulence effectively. Coupling between zonal flows and poloidally asymmetric pressure perturbations due to a geodesic curvature makes the zonal flows oscillatory in a high q region. Energy transfer from the oscillatory zonal flows to the turbulence via the poloidally asymmetric pressure perturbations is identified. Therefore in the high q region where the zonal flows are oscillatory, the zonal flows cannot quench the turbulence and turbulent transport is not suppressed completely. As for the zonal flow behavior, it is favorable for confinement improvement to make the low q region where the stationary zonal flows are dominant in tokamak plasmas.

A modified guiding-centre fundamental 1-form with strong E Â B flow is derived by the phase space Lagrangian Lie perturbation method. Since the symplectic part of the derived 1-form is the same as the standard one without the strong E Â B flow, it yields the standard Lagrange and Poisson brackets. Therefore the guiding-centre Hamilton equations keep their general form even when temporal evolution of the E Â B flow is allowed. Compensation of keeping the standard symplectic structure is paid by complication of the guiding-centre Hamiltonian. However, it is possible to simplify the Hamiltonian in well localised transport barrier regions like a tokamak edge in a high confinement regime and an internal transport barrier in a reversed shear tokamak. The guiding-centre Vlasov and Poisson equations are derived from the variational principle. The conserved energy of the system is obtained from the Noether's theorem. Correspondence to low-frequency fluid equations is shown.

Turbulent transport near the critical gradient in toroidal plasmas is studied based on global Landau-fluid simulations and an extended predator-prey theoretical model of ion temperature gradient turbulence. A new type of intermittent transport associated with the emission and propagation of a geodesic acoustic mode (GAM) is found near the critical gradient regime, which is referred to as GAM intermittency. The intermittency is characterized by new time scales of trigger, damping, and recursion due to GAM damping. During the recursion of intermittent bursts, stationary zonal flow increases with a slow time scale due to the accumulation of undamped residues and eventually quenches the turbulence, suggesting that a nonlinear upshift of the critical gradient, i.e., Dimits shift, is established through such a dynamical process.

Using a global Landau-fluid code in toroidal geometry, an electromagnetic ion temperature gradient (ITG) driven turbulence–zonal mode system is investigated. Two different types of zonal flows, i.e. stationary zonal flows in a low q (safety factor) region and oscillatory ones in a high q region, which are called geodesic acoustic modes, are found to be simultaneously excited in a torus. The stationary flows efficiently suppress turbulent transport, while the oscillatory ones weakly affect the turbulence due to their time varying nature. Therefore, in the low q region where the zonal flows are almost stationary, they are dominant over the turbulence. On the other hand, the turbulence is still active in the high q region where the zonal flows are oscillatory.