Influence of the parallel nonlinearity on zonal flows and heat transport in global gyrokinetic particle-in-cell simulations

Journal Article · Wed Jul 15 00:00:00 EDT 2009 · Physics of Plasmas

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3174433· OSTI ID:21277303

Jolliet, S; McMillan, B F; Vernay, T; Villard, L ^[1]; Hatzky, R ^[2]; Bottino, A ^[3]; Angelino, P ^[4]

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1. Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), Centre de Recherches en Physique des Plasmas, Association Euratom-Confederation Suisse, CH-1015 Lausanne (Switzerland)
2. Rechenzentrum der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft und des Max-Planck-Institutes fuer Plasmaphysik, EURATOM-Association, D-85748 Garching (Germany)
3. Max-Planck-Institut fuer Plasmaphysik, Boltzmannstr. 2, D-85748 Garching (Germany)
4. Association Euratom CEA, CEA/DSM/IRFM, Cadarache, 13108 Saint-Paul-lez-Durance (France)

In this paper, the influence of the parallel nonlinearity on zonal flows and heat transport in global particle-in-cell ion-temperature-gradient simulations is studied. Although this term is in theory orders of magnitude smaller than the others, several authors [L. Villard, P. Angelino, A. Bottino et al., Plasma Phys. Contr. Fusion 46, B51 (2004); L. Villard, S. J. Allfrey, A. Bottino et al., Nucl. Fusion 44, 172 (2004); J. C. Kniep, J. N. G. Leboeuf, and V. C. Decyck, Comput. Phys. Commun. 164, 98 (2004); J. Candy, R. E. Waltz, S. E. Parker et al., Phys. Plasmas 13, 074501 (2006)] found different results on its role. The study is performed using the global gyrokinetic particle-in-cell codes TORB (theta-pinch) [R. Hatzky, T. M. Tran, A. Koenies et al., Phys. Plasmas 9, 898 (2002)] and ORB5 (tokamak geometry) [S. Jolliet, A. Bottino, P. Angelino et al., Comput. Phys. Commun. 177, 409 (2007)]. In particular, it is demonstrated that the parallel nonlinearity, while important for energy conservation, affects the zonal electric field only if the simulation is noise dominated. When a proper convergence is reached, the influence of parallel nonlinearity on the zonal electric field, if any, is shown to be small for both the cases of decaying and driven turbulence.

• OSTI ID: 21277303
• Journal Information: Physics of Plasmas, Journal Name: Physics of Plasmas Journal Issue: 7 Vol. 16; ISSN PHPAEN; ISSN 1070-664X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
ELECTRIC FIELDS
HEAT TRANSFER
ION TEMPERATURE
NONLINEAR PROBLEMS
PLASMA SIMULATION
TEMPERATURE GRADIENTS
TURBULENCE