New conservative gyrokinetic full- Vlasov code and its comparison to gyrokinetic particle-in-cell code

Idomura, Yasuhiro   ; Ida, Masato; Tokuda, Shinji; Villard, L.*

A new conservative gyrokinetic full- Vlasov code is developed using a finite difference operator which conserves both the and norms. The growth of numerical oscillations is suppressed by conserving the norm, and the code is numerically stable and robust in a long time simulation. In the slab ion temperature gradient driven (ITG) turbulence simulation, the energy conservation and the entropy balance relation are confirmed, and solutions are benchmarked against a conventional particle-in-cell (PIC) code. The results show that the exact particle number conservation and the good energy conservation in the conservative Vlasov simulation are advantageous for a long time micro-turbulence simulation. In the comparison, physical and numerical effects of the nonlinearity are clarified for the Vlasov and PIC simulations.