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Global gyrokinetic particle simulations with kinetic electrons

Z Lin, Y Nishimura, Y Xiao, I Holod, W L Zhang and L Chen

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A toroidal, nonlinear, electrostatic fluid-kinetic hybrid electron model is formulated for global gyrokinetic particle simulations of driftwave turbulence in fusion plasmas. Numerical properties are improved by an expansion of the electron response using a smallness parameter of the ratio of driftwave frequency to electron transit frequency. Linear simulations accurately recover the real frequency and growth rate of toroidal ion temperature gradient (ITG) instability. Trapped electrons increase the ITG growth rate by mostly not responding to the ITG modes. Nonlinear simulations of ITG turbulence find that the electron thermal and particle transport are much smaller than the ion thermal transport and that small scale zonal flows are generated through nonlinear interactions of the trapped electrons with the turbulence.


PACS

52.65.Tt Gyrofluid and gyrokinetic simulations

52.35.Ra Plasma turbulence

52.65.Ww Hybrid methods

52.35.Kt Drift waves

52.35.Mw Nonlinear phenomena: waves, wave propagation, and other interactions (including parametric effects, mode coupling, ponderomotive effects, etc.)

52.25.Fi Transport properties

Subjects

Plasma physics

Dates

Issue 12B (December 2007)

Received 6 July 2007

Published 15 November 2007



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