1D drift-kinetic numerical model based on semi-implicit particle-in-cell method

Abstract

The paper presents a new one-dimensional drift-kinetic electrostatic model based on the particle-in-cell method and capable of simulating the processes of plasma heating and confinement in mirror traps. The most of particle and energy losses in these traps occur along the magnetic field lines. The key role in limiting these losses is played by the ambipolar electric potential which creates a potential barrier for electrons and significantly reduces the heat flux that, without this barrier, would go to wall due to the classical electron thermal conductivity. However, modeling the formation of such a potential on real spatial and temporal scales of experiments is a challenging problem, since it requires a detailed description of not only ion, but also electron kinetics. In this work, we propose to solve the problem of taking into account electron kinetic effects on the time scale of plasma confinement in a mirror trap using the particle-in-cell method adapted to the approximate drift-kinetic equations of plasma motion. Unlike other electrostatic particle-in-cell models, which use fully implicit schemes to solve the nonlinear system of Vlasov-Poisson and Vlasov-Ampere equations, we propose a semi-implicit approach. By analogy with the Energy Conserving Semi-Implicit Method (ECSIM), it allows for precise conservation of energy and reduces the procedure for finding the electric field to inverting a tridiagonal matrix without multiple nonlinear iterations. Such a model will be useful for simulating not only collisional losses of hot plasma in fusion experiments, but also for studying the features of creating cold starting plasma in mirror traps using plasma or electron guns.