3D full wave fast wave modeling with realistic HHFW antenna geometry and SOL plasma in NSTX-U

Abstract

This paper reports the significant advancement of our ability to model and to understand how RF waves interact with the SOL plasma, by developing for the full torus 3D scrape-off layer (SOL) plasma simulation together with the antenna and core plasma in the NSTX-U device in HHFW frequency regime for a cold plasma model. The present paper extends the previous modeling (Bertelli et al 2020 AIP Conf. Proc. 2254 030001) to a full 3D device geometry including realistic antenna geometry in order to capture a more realistic experimental situation including the fully 3D wave field effects and the antenna plasma interaction in the SOL plasma, and, at the same time, resulting core wave propagation. The central tool of the present work is the Petra-M code, which is a newly developed state-of-the-art generic electromagnetic simulation tool for modeling RF wave propagation based on MFEM (http://mfem.org), an open source scalable C++ finite element method library.