Full $f$ and $\delta f$ gyrokinetic particle simulations of Alfv\'en waves and energetic particle physics

TL;DR

This paper develops advanced particle-in-cell simulation schemes for Alfvén waves and energetic particles in tokamak plasmas, demonstrating their accuracy and efficiency in challenging electromagnetic regimes.

Contribution

It introduces a unified formulation of full $f$ and $\delta f$ schemes with mixed variables and pullback scheme, enhancing simulation capabilities for energetic particle physics.

Findings

$\delta f$ scheme results agree with previous studies.

Mixed variable/pullback scheme shows excellent performance.

Full $f$ scheme effectively captures large variations in EP profiles.

Abstract

In this work, we focus on the development of the particle-in-cell scheme and the application to the studies of Alfv\'en waves and energetic particle physics in tokamak plasmas. The $\delta f$ and full $f$ schemes are formulated on the same footing adopting mixed variables and the pullback scheme for electromagnetic problems. The TRIMEG-GKX code [Lu et al. J. Comput. Phys. 440 (2021) 110384] has been upgraded using cubic spline finite elements and full $f$ and $\delta f$ schemes. The EP-driven TAE has been simulated for the ITPA-TAE case featured by a small electron skin depth $\sim 1.18\times10^{-3}\;{\rm m}$, which is a challenging parameter regime of electromagnetic simulations, especially for the full $f$ model. The simulation results using the $\delta f$ scheme are in good agreement with previous work. Excellent performance of the mixed variable/pullback scheme has been observed for both full $f$ and $\delta f$ schemes. Simulations with mixed full $f$ EPs and $\delta f$ electrons and thermal ions demonstrate the good features of this novel scheme in mitigating the noise level. The full $f$ scheme is a natural choice for EP physics studies which allows a large variation of EP profiles and distributions in velocity space, providing a powerful tool for kinetic studies using realistic experimental distributions related to intermittent and transient plasma activities.