Assessing energy dependence of the transport of relativistic electrons in perturbed magnetic fields with orbit-following simulations

TL;DR

This study uses orbit-following simulations to analyze how energetic electron transport in perturbed magnetic fields depends on energy, revealing that magnetic configuration details significantly influence transport behavior.

Contribution

It provides a detailed quantification of energy-dependent electron transport in perturbed tokamak fields, highlighting the impact of magnetic configurations and structures like islands.

Findings

Transport decreases with energy in ideal stochastic layers.

No reduction in transport at higher energies in JET-like disruptions.

Magnetic islands and nonuniform perturbations are more influential.

Abstract

Experimental observations, as well as theoretical predictions, indicate that the transport of energetic electrons decreases with energy. This reduction in transport is attributed to finite orbit width (FOW) effects. Using orbit-following simulations in perturbed tokamak magnetic fields that have an ideal homogeneous stochastic layer at the edge, we quantify the energy dependence of energetic electrons transport and confirm previous theoretical estimates. However, using magnetic configurations characteristic of JET disruptions, we find no reduction in RE transport at higher energies, which we attribute to the mode widths being comparable to the minor radius, making the FOW effects negligible. Instead, the presence of islands and nonuniform magnetic perturbations are found to be more important. The diffusive-advective transport coefficients calculated in this work, based on simulations for electron energies 10 keV -- 100 MeV, can be used in reduced kinetic models to account for the transport due to the magnetic field perturbations.