Orbit-based representation of equilibrium distribution functions for low-noise initialization of kinetic simulations of toroidal plasmas

Bierwage, A.; Di Troia, C.*; Briguglio, S.*; Vlad, G.*

This work deals with the initial loading of phase space markers for global gyrokinetic particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations of plasmas that are magnetically confined in a toroidally axisymmetric configuration. A method is presented, which allows to prepare a marker distribution that is independent of time. This is achieved by loading markers on the toroidal surfaces of unperturbed guiding center orbits, where they are distributed uniformly in time. This allows to initialize global PIC codes with an accurate equilibrium distribution function and facilitates simulations with minimal noise-signal correlation. The concrete problem considered is the representation of energetic ions in tokamaks, which are characterized by large drifts across magnetic surfaces.