CENTORI: a global toroidal electromagnetic two-fluid plasma turbulence code

TL;DR

CENTORI is a novel global two-fluid electromagnetic turbulence code for simulating magnetically-confined fusion plasmas, capable of co-evolving plasma equilibrium and turbulence in arbitrary tokamak configurations.

Contribution

It introduces a co-evolving equilibrium-turbulence simulation framework for fusion plasmas, applicable to various tokamak geometries and high plasma beta conditions.

Findings

Simulated tearing mode in large aspect ratio tokamak.

Analyzed turbulence in elongated tokamak plasma.

Demonstrated code's efficiency and parallelization.

Abstract

A new global two-fluid electromagnetic turbulence code, CENTORI, has been developed for the purpose of studying magnetically-confined fusion plasmas on energy confinement timescales. This code is used to evolve the combined system of electron and ion fluid equations and Maxwell equations in toroidal configurations with axisymmetric equilibria. Uniquely, the equilibrium is co-evolved with the turbulence, and is thus modified by it. CENTORI is applicable to tokamaks of arbitrary aspect ratio and high plasma beta. A predictor-corrector, semi-implicit finite difference scheme is used to compute the time evolution of fluid quantities and fields. Vector operations and the evaluation of flux surface averages are speeded up by choosing the Jacobian of the transformation from laboratory to plasma coordinates to be a function of the equilibrium poloidal magnetic flux. A subroutine, GRASS, is used to co-evolve the plasma equilibrium by computing the steady-state solutions of a diffusion equation with a pseudo-time derivative. The code is written in Fortran 95 and is efficiently parallelized using Message Passing Interface (MPI). Illustrative examples of output from simulations of a tearing mode in a large aspect ratio tokamak plasma and of turbulence in an elongated conventional aspect ratio tokamak plasma are provided.