UC Irvine

In this work, gyrokinetic simulations in edge plasmas of both tokamaks and field reversed

configurations (FRC) have been carried out using the Gyrokinetic Toroidal Code (GTC) and A New Code (ANC) has been formulated for cross-separatrix FRC simulation.

In the tokamak edge, turbulent transport in the pedestal of an H-mode DIII-D plasma is

studied via simulations of electrostatic driftwaves. Annulus geometry is used and simulations focus on two radial locations corresponding to the pedestal top with mild pressure gradient and steep pressure gradient. A reactive trapped electron instability with typical ballooning mode structure is excited in the pedestal top. At the steep gradient, the electrostatic instability exhibits unusual mode structure, peaking at poloidal angles theta=+- pi/2. Simulations find this unusual mode structure is due to steep pressure gradients in the pedestal but not due to the particular DIII-D magnetic geometry. Realistic DIII-D geometry has a stabilizing effect compared to a simple circular tokamak geometry.

Driftwave instability in FRC is studied for the first time using gyrokinetic simulation. GTC

is upgraded to treat realistic equilibrium calculated by an MHD equilibrium code. Electrostatic local simulations in outer closed flux surfaces find ion-scale modes are stable due to the large ion gyroradius and that electron drift-interchange modes are excited by electron temperature gradient and bad magnetic curvature. In the scrape-off layer (SOL) ion-scale modes are excited by density gradient and bad curvature. Collisions have weak effects on instabilities both in the core and SOL. Simulation results are consistent with density fluctuation measurements in the C-2 experiment using Doppler backscattering (DBS). The critical density gradients measured by the DBS qualitatively agree with the linear instability threshold calculated by GTC simulations.

One outstanding critical issue in the FRC is the interplay between turbulence in the FRC

core and SOL regions. While the magnetic flux coordinates used by GTC provide a number of computational advantages, they present unique challenges at the magnetic field separatrix. To address this limitation, a new code, capable of coupled core-SOL simulations, is formulated, implemented, and successfully verified.