Abstract. The mean motion of turbulent patterns detected by a two-dimensional (2D) beam emission spectroscopy (BES) diagnostic on the Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak (MAST) is determined using a cross-correlation time delay (CCTD) method. Statistical reliability of the method is studied by means of synthetic data analysis. The experimental measurements on MAST indicate that the apparent mean poloidal motion of the turbulent density patterns in the lab frame arises because the longest correlation direction of the patterns (parallel to the local background magnetic fields) is not parallel to the direction of the fastest mean plasma flows (usually toroidal when strong neutral beam injection is present). The experimental measurements are consistent with the mean motion of plasma being toroidal. The sum of all other contributions (mean poloidal plasma flow, phase velocity of the density patterns in the plasma frame, non-linear effects, etc.) to the apparent mean poloidal velocity of the density patterns is found to be negligible. These results hold in all investigated L-mode, H-mode and internal transport barrier (ITB) discharges. The one exception is a high-poloidal-beta (the ratio of the plasma pressure to the poloidal magnetic field energy density) discharge, where a large magnetic island exists. In this case BES detects very little motion. This effect is currently theoretically unexplained.

The Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak (MAST) was a low aspect ratio device (R/A = 0.85/0.65 ~ 1.3) with similar poloidal cross-section to other medium-size tokamaks. The physics programme concentrates on addressing key physics ___________________________________________________________________________

New results from MAST are presented that focus on validating models in order to extrapolate to future devices. Measurements during start-up experiments have shown how the bulk ion temperature rise scales with the square of the reconnecting field. During the current ramp up models are not able to correctly predict the current diffusion. Experiments have been performed looking at edge and core turbulence. At the edge detailed studies have revealed how filament characteristic are responsible for determining the near and far SOL density profiles. In the core the intrinsic rotation and electron scale turbulence have been measured. The role that the fast ion gradient has on redistributing fast ions through fishbone modes has led to a redesign of the neutral beam injector on MAST Upgrade. In H-mode the turbulence at the pedestal top has been shown to be consistent with being due to electron temperature gradient modes. A reconnection process appears to occur during ELMs and the number of filaments released determines the power profile at the divertor. Resonant magnetic perturbations can mitigate ELMs provided the edge peeling response is maximised and the core kink response minimised. The mitigation of intrinsic error fields with toroidal mode number n>1 has been shown to be important for plasma performance.

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A statistical method for the estimation of spatial correlation lengths of Gaussian-shaped fluctuating signals with two measurement points is examined to quantitatively evaluate its reliability (variance) and accuracy (bias error). The standard deviation of the correlation value is analytically derived for randomly distributed Gaussian shaped fluctuations satisfying stationarity and homogeneity, allowing us to evaluate, as a function of fluctuation-to-noise ratios, sizes of averaging time windows and ratios of the distance between the two measurement points to the true correlation length, the goodness of the two-point measurement for estimating the spatial correlation length. Analytic results are confirmed with numerically generated synthetic data and real experimental data obtained with the KSTAR beam emission spectroscopy diagnostic. Our results can be applied to Gaussian-shaped fluctuating signals where a correlation length must be measured with only two measurement points.