By presenting linear and nonlinear gyrokinetic studies, based on a balanced
neutral beam injection deuterium discharge from the DIII-D tokamak, we
demonstrate that impurities alter the scaling of the transport on the charge
and mass of the main species, and even more importantly, they can dramatically
change the energy transport even in relatively small quantities. A poloidally
varying equilibrium electrostatic potential can lead to a strong reduction or
sign change of the impurity peaking factor due to the combined effect of the
in-out impurity density asymmetry and the EXB drift of impurities. We present
an approximate expression for the impurity peaking factor and demonstrate that
impurity peaking is not significantly affected by impurity self-collisions.Comment: Accepted for publication in Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusio
