HALO: A full-orbit model of nonlinear interaction of fast particles with eigenmodes

Abstract

HALO (HAgis LOcust) solves the initial value Vlasov–Maxwell problem perturbatively for application to certain nonlinear wave-particle problems in tokamak plasmas. It uses the same basic approach as the HAGIS code (Pinches et al., 1998) for wave evolution but is built on the LOCUST-GPU full-orbit code (Akers et al., 2012) for the solution of the Hamiltonian fast particle motion in cylindrical coordinates. The wave amplitude and particle evolution include all finite Larmor radius effects. We describe and benchmark the currently implemented Alfvén eigenmode workflow, demonstrating correct particle motion, linear and nonlinear power transfer. The formulation and numerical scheme are sufficiently general as to allow easy future implementation of different kinds of eigenmodes, such as modes close to the ion-cyclotron frequency. The code can model multiple eigenmodes and multiple fast ion species simultaneously, and supports the general form of the equilibrium distribution in constants of motion.