An approximate factorization procedure for solving nine-point elliptic difference equations. Application for a fast 2-D relativistic Fokker-Planck solver (Q1299589)

The two-dimensional (2-D) relativistic Fokker-Planck equation for the current drive problem and synergetic effect between the lower hybrid and the electron cyclotron waves in tokamak are investigated. For the solution the implicit numerical procedure based on the use of nine-point difference operator is proposed. The convergence of this method is significantly enhanced as compared with the standard approach based on the use of five-point difference operator. Also the numerical stability is strongly improved without large degradation of the CPU consumption. The new algorithm, based on an approximate matrix factorization technique, may be applied to all numerical problems with large sets of equations which involve nine-point difference operators.