3D Simulations of Plasma Filaments in the Scrape Off Layer: A Comparison with Models of Reduced Dimensionality

TL;DR

This study uses 3D reduced fluid simulations to analyze plasma filament dynamics in the scrape-off layer, comparing simplified 2D models with different parallel closures to assess their accuracy and limitations.

Contribution

It provides a detailed comparison of 3D filament dynamics with 2D reduced models, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of sheath dissipation and vorticity advection closures.

Findings

Perpendicular size strongly influences filament motion.

Sheath dissipation closure better replicates 3D dynamics.

Neither closure captures Boltzmann spinning effects.

Abstract

This paper presents simulations of isolated 3D filaments in a slab geometry obtained using a 3D reduced fluid code. First, systematic scans were performed to investigate how the dynamics of a filament are affected by its amplitude, perpendicular size and parallel extent. The perpendicular size of the filament was found to have a strong influence on its motions, as it determined the relative importance of parallel currents to polarisation and viscous currents, whilst drift-wave instabilities were observed if the initial amplitude of the blob was increased sufficiently. Next, the 3D simulations were compared to 2D simulations using different parallel closures; namely, the sheath dissipation closure, which neglects parallel gradients, and the vorticity advection closure, which neglects the influence of parallel currents. The vorticity advection closure was found to not replicate the 3D perpendicular dynamics and overestimated the initial radial acceleration of all the filaments studied. In contrast, a more satisfactory comparison with the sheath dissipation closure was obtained, even in the presence of significant parallel gradients, where the closure is no longer valid. Specifically it captured the contrasting dynamics of filaments with different perpen- dicular sizes that were observed in the 3D simulations which the vorticity advection closure failed to replicate. However, neither closure successfully replicated the Boltzmann spinning effects and associated poloidal drift of the blob that was observed in the 3D simulations. Although the sheath dissipation closure was concluded to be more successful in replicating the 3D dynamics, it is emphasised that the vorticity closure may still be relevant for situations where the parallel current is inhibited from closing through the sheath due to effects such as increased resistivity near the targets.