Interplay between nonlinear transport crossphase and zonal models in two-field ITG turbulence

Paper in proceeding, 2025

It is well-known that 𝐸 × 𝐵 flows can suppress turbulent transport in fusion devices, either via suppression of the turbulence amplitude [1], or via suppression of the transport crossphase between the electric potential and the transported quantity, e..g. ion/electron temperature or density, etc ... [2]. Several works showed evidence of radial modulation of the transport crossphase in the Hasegawa-Wakatani model [3,4,5]. In the present work, we derive the nonlinear crossphase dynamics directly from the Tensor wave-kinetic equation (TWKE) [6] - a natural extension of the standard WKE for drift-waves [7]. We apply this analysis to the well-known Chalmers two-field ion-temperature-gradient driven (ITG) turbulence model [8,9].