Modeling of plasma transport during edge-localized mode in tokamak using a kinetic Vlasov-Poisson code

RESUMO

A kinetic parallel transport code KOBRA based on a finite-volume method is developed to study edge localized mode (ELM) plasma transport from the mid-plane to divertor targets. The large scale separation between the Debye length (~cm) and the connection length (~10-20 m) leads to prohibitive computational cost in full 6D simulations. To alleviate this, an adaptive-mesh refinement (AMR) strategy is employed. Comparisons with uniform-grid simulations show that AMR accurately reproduces the characteristic ELM dynamics, including the rapid rise and slow decay of divertor fluxes, as well as the early-time peak induced by fast electrons. Analysis of the electron distribution and self-consistent electric field reveals that AMR efficiency is closely linked to phase-space evolution. Overall, AMR achieves comparable physical accuracy while reducing memory usage by 30-40% and accelerating computations by up to a factor of two, demonstrating its effectiveness for high-dimensional kinetic ELM simulations.