Plasma simulation

The complexity of fusion-grade plasmas and the increased computational power that has become available in recent years has made the simulation of plasmas a prime object of study in the field of fusion research. Although the basic equations governing the behaviour of magnetised plasmas are known, approximations are always necessary in any code of practical interest; e.g. the extreme disparity of the transport timescales (seconds) and turbulent timescales (microseconds) make it hard to perform detailed turbulence simulations for the whole three-dimensional plasma volume and for several transport timescales.

Codes

Codes can either be interpretative (taking some input from experiment) or predictive. They can be full-tokamak (or full-stellarator), or simulate only a small portion of plasma (a flux tube, the edge, or the Scrape-Off Layer). Recent years have seen an increased effort in the field of cross code benchmarking. ^[1] ^[2] ^[3] ^[4]

Fluid codes

CUTIE (predictive, 3-D, full-tokamak)
PRETOR
PROCTR (1-D)
TRANSP
JETTO
MMM95
EDGE2D-NIMBUS (edge)
UEDGE
SOLPS

Monte Carlo

MOCA
EIRENE (edge)

Gyrokinetic codes

References

↑ Nevins W.M. et al, Phys. Plasmas 13 (2006) 122306
↑ A.M. Dimits et al, Nucl. Fusion 47 (2007) 817-824
↑ G L Falchetto et al, Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion 50 (2008) 124015
↑ National Transport Code Collaboration

[1] Nevins W.M. et al, Phys. Plasmas 13 (2006) 122306

[2] A.M. Dimits et al, Nucl. Fusion 47 (2007) 817-824

[3] G L Falchetto et al, Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion 50 (2008) 124015

[4] National Transport Code Collaboration

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