Benchmarking of flux-driven full-F gyrokinetic simulations

Two full-F global gyrokinetic codes are benchmarked to compute flux-driven ion temperature gradient (ITG) turbulence in tokamak plasmas. For this purpose, the Semi-Lagrangian code GYrokinetic SEmi-LAgrangian and the Eulerian code GT5D are employed, which solve the full-F gyrokinetic equation with a realistic fixed flux condition. The equilibrium poloidal flow profile formation processes are benchmarked and compared against the local neoclassical theory. The simulations above are carried out without turbulence, which agree well with each other and with the theoretical estimates. Here, a lot of attention has been paid to the boundary conditions, which have huge impacts on the global shape of radial electric field. The behaviors of micro-instabilities are benchmarked for linear and nonlinear cases without a heat source, where we found good agreements in the linear growth rates and nonlinear critical gradient level. In the nonlinear case, initial conditions are chosen to be identical since they dominate the transient turbulence behavior. Using the appropriate settings for the boundary and initial conditions obtained in the benchmarks above, a flux-driven ITG turbulence simulation is carried out. The avalanche-like transport is assessed with a focus on spatio-temporal properties. A statistical analysis is performed to discuss this self-organized criticality (SOC) like behaviors, where we found a 1/f spectra and a transition to 1/f(3) spectra at high-frequency side in both codes. Based on these benchmarks, it is verified that the SOC-like behavior is robust and not dependent on numerics. Published by AIP Publishing.