We address the problem of recognizing $\alpha$-stable Lévy distribution with Lévy index close to 2 from experimental data. We are interested in the case when the sample size of available data is not large, thus the power law asymptotics of the distribution is not clearly detectable, and the shape of the empirical probability density function is close to a Gaussian. We propose a testing procedure combining a simple visual test based on empirical fourth moment with the Anderson-Darling and Jarque-Bera statistical tests and we check the efficiency of the method on simulated data. Furthermore, we apply our method to the analysis of turbulent plasma density and potential fluctuations measured in the stellarator-type fusion device and demonstrate that the phenomenon of the L-H transition from low confinement, L mode, to a high confinement, H mode, which occurs in this device is accompanied by the transition from Lévy to Gaussian fluctuation statistics.

• Received 13 March 2012

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.85.056711