Benchmarking Nonlinear Turbulence Simulations on Alcator C-Mod

Linear simulations of plasma microturbulence are used with recent radial profiles of toroidal velocity from similar plasmas to consider nonlinear microturbulence simulations and observed transport analysis on Alcator C-Mod. We focus on internal transport barrier (ITB) formation in fully equilibrated H-mode plasmas with nearly flat velocity profiles. Velocity profile data, transport analysis and linear growth rates are combined to integrate data and simulation, and explore the effects of toroidal velocity on benchmarking simulations. Areas of interest for future nonlinear simulations are identified. A good gyrokinetic benchmark is found in the plasma core, without extensive nonlinear simulations. RF-heated C-Mod H-mode experiments, which exhibit an ITB, have been studied with the massively parallel code GS2 towards validation of gyrokinetic microturbulence models. New, linear, gyrokinetic calculations are reported and discussed in connection with transport analysis near the ITB trigger time of shot No.1001220016.