Development of a gyrokinetic-MHD energetic particle simulation code. II. Linear simulations of Alfvén eigenmodes driven by energetic particles

Abstract

We have developed a hybrid code GMEC: Gyro-kinetic Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) Energetic-particle Code that can numerically simulate energetic particle-driven Alfvén eigenmodes and energetic particle transport in tokamak plasmas. In order to resolve the Alfvén eigenmodes with high toroidal numbers effectively, the field-aligned coordinates and meshes are adopted. The extended MHD equations are solved with the five-point finite difference method and the fourth-order Runge–Kutta method. The gyrokinetic equations are solved by particle-in-cell method for the perturbed energetic particle pressures that are coupled into the MHD equations. Up to now, a simplified version of the hybrid code has been completed with several successful verifications, including linear simulations of toroidal Alfvén eigenmodes and reversed shear Alfvén eigenmodes.