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Sensitivity of kinetic ballooning mode instability to tokamak equilibrium implementations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 September 2016

H. S. Xie
Affiliation:
Institute for Fusion Theory and Simulation, Department of Physics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, PR China Fusion Simulation Center, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
Y. Xiao*
Affiliation:
Institute for Fusion Theory and Simulation, Department of Physics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, PR China
I. Holod
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA
Z. Lin
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA Fusion Simulation Center, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
E. A. Belli
Affiliation:
General Atomics, P.O. Box 85608, San Diego, CA 92186-5608, USA
*
Email address for correspondence: yxiao@zju.edu.cn

Abstract

Global, first-principles study of the kinetic ballooning mode (KBM) is crucial to understand tokamak edge physics in high-confinement mode (H-mode). In contrast to the ion temperature gradient mode and trapped electron mode, the KBM is found to be very sensitive to the equilibrium implementations in gyrokinetic codes. In this paper, we show that a second-order difference in Shafranov shift or geometric coordinates, or a difference between local and global profile implementations can bring a factor of two or more discrepancy in real frequency and growth rate. This suggests that an accurate global equilibrium is required for validation of gyrokinetic KBM simulations.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2016 

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