Accelerated methods for direct computation of fusion alpha particle losses within stellarator optimization

Christopher G. Albert*, Sergei V. Kasilov, Winfried Kernbichler

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Accelerated statistical computation of collisionless fusion alpha particle losses in stellarator configurations is presented based on direct guiding-centre orbit tracing. The approach relies on the combination of recently developed symplectic integrators in canonicalized magnetic flux coordinates and early classification into regular and chaotic orbit types. Only chaotic orbits have to be traced up to the end, as their behaviour is unpredictable. An implementation of this technique is provided in the code SIMPLE (symplectic integration methods for particle loss estimation, Albert et al., 2020b, doi:10.5281/zenodo.3666820). Reliable results were obtained for an ensemble of 1000 orbits in a quasi-isodynamic, a quasi-helical and a quasi-axisymmetric configuration. Overall, a computational speed up of approximately one order of magnitude is achieved compared to direct integration via adaptive Runge–Kutta methods. This reduces run times to the range of typical magnetic equilibrium computations and makes direct alpha particle loss computation adequate for use within a stellarator optimization loop.
Original languageEnglish
Article number815860201
JournalJournal of Plasma Physics
Volume86
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 23 Mar 2020

Keywords

  • fusion plasma
  • plasma confinement
  • plasma simulation

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Condensed Matter Physics

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