Gyrokinetic simulation of fusion plasma turbulence, 1; Modelling and numerical methods

Ida, Masato; Idomura, Yasuhiro   ; Tokuda, Shinji

A numerical code for fusion plasma turbulence has been developed based on a conservative finite difference method for neutral fluids. The theoretical model used in the code is the gyrokinetic equation, and the present finite difference formula is based on the one proposed by Morinishi, which is known to conserve not only the dependent variable but also its squared value. Numerical tests based on ITG turbulence simulations have demonstrated excellent properties of the present code. The conservation error in total energy of the present code, for example, is more than ten times smaller than that of existing codes.