Benchmarking the Scrape-Off-Layer Fast Ion (SOLFI) particle tracer code in a collisionless magnetic mirror with electrostatic potential drop

Abstract

Optimizing the confinement and transport of fast ions is an important consideration in the design of modern fusion reactors. For spherical tokamaks in particular, fast ions can significantly influence global plasma behavior because their large drift orbits often sample both core and scrape-off-layer (SOL) plasma conditions. Their Larmor radii are also comparable to the SOL width, rendering the commonly chosen guiding center approximations inappropriate. Accurately modeling the behavior of fast ions therefore requires retaining a complete description of the fast ion orbit including its Larmor motion. Here, we introduce the Scrape-Off-Layer Fast Ion (SOLFI) code, which is a new and versatile full-orbit Monte Carlo particle tracer being developed to follow fast ion orbits inside and outside the separatrix. We benchmark SOLFI in a simple straight mirror geometry and show that the code (i) conserves particle energy and magnetic moment, (ii) obtains the correct passing boundary for particles moving in magnetic mirror field with an imposed electrostatic field, and (iii) correctly observes equal ion and electron current at the ambipolar potential predicted from analytical theory. II. LOSS PARTICLE CURRENT AND AMBIPOLAR POTENTIAL DROP IN COLLISIONLESS MIRRORLet us consider a magnetic mirror field aligned along x in a two-dimensional (2-D) slab geometry with ẑ an