Gyrokinetic full-f particle-in-cell simulations on open field lines with PICLS (1908.00318v2)

Abstract: While in recent years, gyrokinetic simulations have become the workhorse for theoretical turbulence and transport studies in the plasma core, their application to the edge and scrape-off layer (SOL) region presents significant challenges. In particular, steep density and temperature gradients as well as large fluctuation amplitudes call for a "full-f" treatment. To specifically study problems in the SOL region, the gyrokinetic particle-in-cell (PIC) code PICLS has been developed. The code is based on an electrostatic full-f model with linearised field equations and uses kinetic electrons. Here, the well-studied parallel transport problem during an edge-localized mode (ELM) in the SOL shall be investigated for one spatial dimension. The results are compared to previous gyrokinetic continuum and fully kinetic PIC simulations and show good agreement.