Determination of diffusive and nondiffusive transport in modulation experiments in plasmas

The problem of the propagation of a harmonic temperature perturbation in a plasma with both diffusive and nondiffusive energy transport is addressed. The energy flux is modeled by two (radially varying) effective coefficients for the diffusive and nondiffusive transport, and the effects of perturbed energy sinks and of cylindrical geometry are taken into account. A simple, local relationship is found between the two transport coefficients and the gradients of the phase and amplitude of the temperature perturbation. This relationship can be used for the interpretation of heating modulation experiments, provided data at different modulation frequencies are available. Since a harmonic density perturbation in a plasma follows a similar linearized transport equation, a similar model can be applied also to density modulation experiments.