Verification of an improved equation-free projective integration method for neoclassical plasma-profile evolution in tokamak geometry

Abstract

A brute-force, long-time gyrokinetic simulation of plasma profile evolution in magnetic fusion devices is not desirable due to large computational resource requirements and a possible accumulation of numerical error. The equation-free projective integration method of Keverekidis et al. [Commun. Math. Sci. 1(4), 715–762 (2003)] is one of the outstanding candidates in projecting micro-scale simulations to a longer timescale. However, its application to tokamak plasma has not been fruitful due to the appearance of spurious transient oscillations in the lifting process, which are present when the kinetic simulations are initialized with a simplified model distribution function and which make the kinetic simulations to deviate from the desired paths. In this work, a kinetically informed lifting algorithm is added to the equation-free projective integration method, which is then verified in the electrostatic gyrokinetic particle-in-cell code XGCa [R. Hager and C. S. Chang, Phys. Plasmas 23, 042503 (2016)] for a neoclassical ion heat transport problem with adiabatic electrons. This new lifting operator is demonstrated to control spurious transients, enabling an over four-times reduction in the overall computing time in the time-evolution of the ion temperature profile in an axisymmetric toroidal plasma. Further reduction in the computing time is found to be limited due to the stability properties of the linear least squares projective integrator.