  This Letter provides a theoretical interpretation of numerically generated
probability density functions (PDFs) of intermittent plasma transport events.
Specifically, nonlinear gyrokinetic simulations of ion-temperature-gradient
turbulence produce time series of heat flux which exhibit manifestly
non-Gaussian PDFs with enhanced tails. It is demonstrated that, after the
removal of autocorrelations, the numerical PDFs can be matched with predictions
from a fluid theoretical setup, based on the instanton method. This result
points to a universality in the modeling of intermittent stochastic process,
offering predictive capability.
