Nonlinear gyrokinetic PIC simulations in stellarators with the code EUTERPE

Abstract

In this work, the first nonlinear particle-in-cell simulations carried out in a stellarator with the global gyrokinetic code EUTERPE using realistic plasma parameters are reported. Several studies are conducted with the aim of enabling reliable nonlinear simulations in stellarators with this code. First, EUTERPE is benchmarked against ORB5 in both linear and nonlinear settings in a tokamak configuration. Next, the use of noise control and stabilization tools, a Krook-type collision operator, markers weight smoothing and heating sources is investigated. It is studied in detail how these tools influence the linear growth rate of instabilities in both tokamak and stellarator geometries and their influence on the linear zonal flow evolution in a stellarator. Then, it is studied how these tools allow improving the quality of the results in a set of nonlinear simulations of electrostatic turbulence in a stellarator configuration. Finally, these tools are applied to a W7-X magnetic configuration using experimental plasma parameters.

24 pages, 19 figures

References in corpus (6)

• ORB5: a global electromagnetic gyrokinetic code using the PIC approach in toroidal geometry
• Second order Gyrokinetic theory for Particle-In-Cell codes
• On neoclassical impurity transport in stellarator geometry
• Residual zonal flows in tokamaks and stellarators at arbitrary wavelengths
• Semianalytical calculation of the zonal-flow oscillation frequency in stellarators
• Oscillatory relaxation of zonal flows in a multi-species stellarator plasma

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Radial electric field and density fluctuations measured by Doppler reflectometry during the post-pellet enhanced confinement phase in W7-X
• An experimental characterization of core turbulence regimes in Wendelstein 7-X
• First-principles based plasma profile predictions for optimized stellarators
• Electrostatic gyrokinetic simulations in Wendelstein 7-X geometry: benchmark between the codes stella and GENE
• Comparison of local and global gyrokinetic calculations of collisionless zonal flow damping in quasi-symmetric stellarators
• Instabilities and turbulence in stellarators from the perspective of global codes
• Gyrokinetic simulations in stellarators using different computational domains
• Numerics and computation in gyrokinetic simulations of electromagnetic turbulence with global particle-in-cell codes