Abstract
It is found that the energy dependent diffusion theory provides excellent accuracy in the modelling of transport of neutral atoms in fusion plasmas. Two reasons in particular explain the good accuracy. First, while the plasma is optically thick for low energy neutrals, it is optically thin for high energy neutrals and the diffusion theory with Marshak boundary conditions gives accurate results for an optically thin medium, even for small values of c, the ratio of the scattering cross-section to the total cross-section. Second, the effective value of c at low energy is very close to 1 because of the downscattering via collisions of high energy neutrals. The first reason is proven computationally and theoretically by solving the transport equation in a power series in c and solving the diffusion equation with ‘general’ Marshak boundary conditions. The second reason is established numerically by comparing the results from a one-dimensional, general geometry, multigroup diffusion theory code, written for this purpose, with the results obtained using the transport code ANISN. Earlier studies comparing one-speed diffusion and transport theory indicated that the diffusion theory would be inaccurate. A detailed analysis shows that this conclusion is limited to a very specific case. Surprisingly, for a very wide range of conditions and when energy dependence is included, the diffusion theory is highly accurate.
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