Spatiotemporal structures of edge limit-cycle oscillation before L-to-H transition in the JFT-2M tokamak

Kobayashi, Tatsuya*; Ito, Kimitaka*; Ido, Takeshi*; Kamiya, Kensaku; Ito, Sanae*; Miura, Yukitoshi; Nagashima, Yoshihiko*; Fujisawa, Akihide*; Inagaki, Shigeru*; Ida, Katsumi*; Hoshino, Katsumichi

In this Letter, we report analyses of spatiotemporal dynamics of turbulence and structure in the limit cycle oscillation that precedes L-to-H transition. Zonal flows are not observed during LCO, and the oscillation is the periodic generations/decays of barrier with edge localized mean flow. Oscillatory Reynolds stress is found too small to accelerate the LCO flow. Changes of the density gradient and turbulence amplitude are found to propagate into the core in a ballistic manner, suggesting a cause of fast change of core transport after H-mode transition.