It has been observed in the T-10 tokamak that immediately after off-axis electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) switch-off, the core electron temperature stays constant for some time, which can be as long as several tens of milliseconds, i.e. several energy confinement times (τ E), before it starts to decrease. Whether or not the effect is observed depends critically on the local magnetic shear in the vicinity of the q = 1 rational surface, which should be close to zero. It is hypothesized that a small shear can induce the formation of an internal transport barrier. Measurements of density fluctuations in the transport barrier with a correlation reflectometer show immediately after the ECRH switch-off a clear reduction in the fluctuation level, corroborating the above results. The delayed temperature decrease has also been observed in similar discharges in the TEXTOR tokamak; however, the delay is restricted to ∼1×τ E .

Previous investigations of small-scale density fluctuation by means of correlation reflectometry in T-10 tokamak revealed the existence of several density fluctuation types and strong radial and poloidal variation of their amplitudes and correlation properties. This paper is focused on the new measurements of the 3D spatial distributions of the amplitudes, the radial correlation lengths and the long range correlations along the field lines for the different turbulence types. The properties of the density fluctuations were systematically studied with the improved reflectometers, data analyzing and acquisition hardware. The density fluctuations were measured by heterodyne correlation reflectometry using ordinary mode. New T-10 antenna set have horn antennae arrays at four places distributed toroidally and poloidally over tokamak torus. The experiments confirmed previously found strong poloidal amplitude asymmetry of the broad band and the quasi-coherent oscillations and the uniform poloidal distribution of stochastic low frequency fluctuations. The presence of those turbulence types was also proved by the measurements of perturbation properties using heavy ion beam probe diagnostic. The radial correlation measurements were performed at four poloidal angles to understand the poloidal dependence of the radial correlation length for the different fluctuation types. The significant decrease of the radial correlation lengths towards the high magnetic field side was observed for quasi-coherent and stochastic low frequency turbulence types. The long range correlations along the field lines were measured by the reflectometers in two cross-section separated by 1/4 of the torus. The reflectometers have the same frequency thus provide reflection from the same magnetic surface. Reflection radii are chosen by the frequency variation of the launched wave from shot to shot in a series of reproducible discharges. The measurements were carried out at the low and the high magnetic field side with two currents and simultaneous reverse of the direction of the toroidal magnetic field and the plasma current. Resonance radii were also calculated using 3D tracing of the magnetic field line and demonstrate good agreement with experiments. These results allow to propose the new approach for the current profile measurements in tokamaks.

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