Quasilinear gyrokinetic theory: A derivation of QuaLiKiz

TL;DR

This paper provides a detailed derivation and comprehensive overview of QuaLiKiz, a quasilinear gyrokinetic code used for predicting turbulent transport in tokamaks, from fundamental physics principles.

Contribution

It offers the first self-contained derivation of QuaLiKiz, enhancing understanding and serving as a guide for deriving similar quasilinear models.

Findings

Complete derivation of QuaLiKiz from first principles

Clarification of the physics underlying quasilinear gyrokinetic modeling

Framework for deriving other quasilinear transport codes

Abstract

In order to predict and analyze turbulent transport in tokamaks, it is important to model transport that arises from microinstabilities. For this task, quasilinear codes have been developed that seek to calculate particle, angular momentum, and heat fluxes both quickly and accurately. In this tutorial, we present a derivation of one such code known as QuaLiKiz, a quasilinear gyrokinetic transport code. The goal of this derivation is to provide a self-contained and complete description of the underlying physics and mathematics of QuaLiKiz from first principles. This work serves both as a comprehensive overview of QuaLiKiz specifically as well as an illustration for deriving quasilinear models in general.