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Title: Monte Carlo implementation of a guiding-center Fokker-Planck kinetic equation

Journal Article · · Physics of Plasmas
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4820951· OSTI ID:22220606
; ;  [1];  [2]
  1. Department of Applied Physics, Aalto University, FI-00076 Aalto (Finland)
  2. Department of Physics, Saint Michael's College, Colchester, Vermont 05439 (United States)

A Monte Carlo method for the collisional guiding-center Fokker-Planck kinetic equation is derived in the five-dimensional guiding-center phase space, where the effects of magnetic drifts due to the background magnetic field nonuniformity are included. It is shown that, in the limit of a homogeneous magnetic field, our guiding-center Monte Carlo collision operator reduces to the guiding-center Monte Carlo Coulomb operator previously derived by Xu and Rosenbluth [Phys. Fluids B 3, 627 (1991)]. Applications of the present work will focus on the collisional transport of energetic ions in complex nonuniform magnetized plasmas in the large mean-free-path (collisionless) limit, where magnetic drifts must be retained.

OSTI ID:
22220606
Journal Information:
Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 20, Issue 9; Other Information: (c) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1070-664X
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English