SELF-ORGANIZED CRITICALITY AS A PARADIGM FOR TRANSPORT IN MAGNETICALLY CONFINED PLASMAS

Many models of natural phenomena manifest the basic hypothesis of self -organized criticality (SOC) [P. Bak, C. Tang, and K. Weisenfeld, Phys . Rev. Lett., 1987, vol. 59, p. 381]. The SOC concept brings together the self-similarity on space and time scales that are common to many o f these phenomena. The application of the SOC modeling concept to the plasma dynamics near marginal stability opens new possibilities of und erstanding issues such as Bohm scaling, profile consistency, broad-ban d fluctuation spectra with universal characteristics, and fast time sc ales. In this paper, we review the SOC concept and its possible applic ations to the study of transport in magnetically confined plasmas.