The effect of collisional damping of zonal flows (ZFs) on ion-temperature gradient (ITG) driven turbulence in a toroidal plasma is investigated by means of a 3D global fluid model with flux boundary conditions. Results from simulations show an increase of the energy confinement time and a stabilization of turbulence with the inverse of the collisionality ${\nu }_{*}$. The stabilization mechanism is identified as an effect of the increased shearing rate of ZFs, which shift upwards the ITG turbulence effective threshold. The shearing rate of ZFs is also seen to depend on the injected power. As a consequence, the effective heat conductivity depends parametrically on the input power.

• Received 25 July 2003

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.92.025002