Comparison between measurements of the poloidal distribution of magnetic fluctuations and predictions of theoretical models during TAE activity

Fluctuations produced by beam-driven toroidicity-induced Alfven eigenmode (TAE) activity in the DIII-D tokamak are measured by a poloidal array of magnetic probes and compared with the wavefields computed by two theoretical models. Fluid resistive models compute continuum damped TAEs. A kinetic plasma model that retains Landau damping and finite Larmor radius effects computes global drift-kinetic Alfven eigenmodes. The phases of the probes disagree with both theoretical predictions, while the amplitudes agree best with the kinetic model.