A Gyrokinetic 1D Scrape-Off Layer Model of an ELM Heat Pulse

TL;DR

This paper develops a gyrokinetic 1D model to simulate ELM-induced heat pulses in the scrape-off layer, reducing computational constraints and capturing key physics of plasma transport near divertors.

Contribution

It introduces a gyrokinetic quasineutrality-based model with logical sheath boundary conditions for simulating ELM heat pulses, advancing edge plasma modeling techniques.

Findings

Efficient simulation of ELM heat pulses using gyrokinetics.

Reduction of resolution requirements by employing quasineutrality and sheath models.

Illustration of physics and numerical challenges in edge gyrokinetic codes.

Abstract

An electrostatic gyrokinetic-based model is applied to simulate parallel plasma transport in the scrape-off layer to a divertor plate. The authors focus on a test problem that has been studied previously, using parameters chosen to model a heat pulse driven by an edge-localized mode (ELM) in JET. Previous work has used direct particle-in-cell equations with full dynamics, or Vlasov or fluid equations with only parallel dynamics. With the use of the gyrokinetic quasineutrality equation and logical sheath boundary conditions, spatial and temporal resolution requirements are no longer set by the electron Debye length and plasma frequency, respectively. This test problem also helps illustrate some of the physics contained in the Hamiltonian form of the gyrokinetic equations and some of the numerical challenges in developing an edge gyrokinetic code.