Dependence of the turbulent particle flux on hydrogen isotopes induced by collisionality

The impact of the change of the mass of hydrogen isotopes on the turbulent particle flux is studied. The trapped electron component of the turbulent particle convection induced by collisionality, which is outward in ion temperature gradient turbulence, increases with decreasing thermal velocity of the isotope. Thereby, the lighter is the isotope, the stronger is the turbulent pinch, and the larger is the predicted density gradient at the null of the particle flux. The passing particle component of the flux increases with decreasing mass of the isotope and can also affect the predicted density gradient. This effect is however subdominant for usual core plasma parameters. The analytical results are confirmed by means of both quasi-linear and nonlinear gyrokinetic simulations, and an estimate of the difference in local density gradient produced by this effect as a function of collisionality has been obtained for typical plasma parameters at mid-radius. Analysis of currently available experimental data from the JET and the ASDEX Upgrade tokamaks does not show any clear and general evidence of inconsistency with this theoretically predicted effect outside the errorbars and also allows the identification of cases providing weak evidence of qualitative consistency.