Comparison between kinetic and fluid simulations of slab ion temperature gradient driven turbulence

Abstract

A detailed comparison between kinetic and fluid simulations of collisionless slab ion temperature gradient driven turbulence is made. The nondissipative closure model (NCM) for linearly unstable modes, which is presented by Sugama, Watanabe, and Horton [Phys. Plasmas 8, 2617 (2001)], and the dissipative closure model by Hammett and Perkins (HP) [Phys. Rev. Lett. 64, 3019 (1990)] are used in separate fluid simulations. The validity of these closure models for quantitative prediction of the turbulent thermal transport is examined by comparing nonlinear results of the fluid simulations with those of the collisionless kinetic simulation of high accuracy. Simulation results show that, in the saturated turbulent state, the turbulent thermal diffusivity χ obtained from the HP model is significantly larger than the χ given by the NCM which is closer to χ measured in the kinetic simulation. Contrary to the dissipative form of the parallel heat flux closure relation assumed in the HP model, the NCM describes well the exact kinetic simulation, in which for some unstable wave numbers k, the imaginary part of the ratio of the parallel heat flux qk to the temperature fluctuation Tk is a oscillatory function of time and sometimes takes positive values. The positive values of Im(qk/Tk), imply the negative parallel heat diffusivity, correlate with the occasional inward heat flux occurring for the wave numbers k, and reduce the total χ.