Self-organization of electrostatic turbulence in a cylindrical plasma

On the basis of theory and computer simulations the authors show that electrostatic turbulence in a cylindrical plasma with magnetic shear and curvature self-organizes to form a macroscopic potential Phi which depends only on the radial coordinate r and is given by Phi (r) approximately equals J sub(0)(pr)+C sub(1)r super(2)+C sub(2), where C sub(1) and C sub(2) are functions of a constant p. A unique feature of the potential is the existence of a coaxial Phi (r sub(0)) = 0 surface at r sub(0) approximately equals 0.7a, where a is the radius of the cylinder. This surface is found to be fairly rigid and is considered to inhibit particle transport.