An E and B gyrokinetic simulation model for kinetic Alfvén waves in tokamak plasmas

Journal Article · 02 February 2022 · Physics of Plasmas

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0079053 · OSTI ID:1880108

Rosen, M. H.  ^[1]; Lu, Z. X.  ^[2]; Hoelzl, M.  ^[2]

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1. Max Planck Inst. for Plasma Physics, Bavaria (Germany); Princeton Plasma Physics Lab. (PPPL), Princeton, NJ (United States)
2. Max Planck Inst. for Plasma Physics, Bavaria (Germany)

The gyrokinetic particle simulation is a powerful tool for studies of transport, nonlinear phenomenon, and energetic particle physics in tokamak plasmas. While most gyrokinetic simulations make use of the scalar and vector potentials, a new model (GK-E&B) has been developed by using the E and B field in a general form and has been implemented in simulating kinetic Alfvén waves in uniform plasma. In our work, the Chen et al. GK-E&B model has been expressed, in general, tokamak geometry using the local orthogonal coordinates and general tokamak coordinates. Its reduction for uniform plasma is verified, and the numerical results show good agreement with the original work. The theoretical dispersion relation and numerical results in the local model in screw pinch geometry are also in excellent agreement. Numerical results show excellent performance in a realistic parameter regime of burning plasmas with high values of β/(M_ek$$^{2}_{⊥}$$ρ$$^{2}_{i}$$), which is a challenge for traditional methods due to the “cancellation” problem. As one application, the GK-E&B model is implemented with kinetic electrons in the local single flux surface limit. With the matched International Tokamak Physics Activity-Toroidicity-induced Alfvén Eigenmodes parameters adopted, numerical results show the capability of the GK-E&B in treating the parallel electron Landau damping for realistic tokamak plasma parameters. As another application, the global GK-E&B model has been implemented with the dominant electron contribution in the cold electron limit. Its capability in simulating the finite E_|| due to the finite electron mass is demonstrated.

• Research Organization: Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), Princeton, NJ (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• OSTI ID: 1880108
• Journal Information: Physics of Plasmas, Journal Name: Physics of Plasmas Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 29; ISSN 1070-664X
• Publisher: American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English