Unlike-particle collision operator for gyrokinetic particle simulations (Q983014)

In modern tokamak experiments, the plasmas contain a significant fraction of impurity ion species in addition to the main deuterium beckground. In order to treat the non-local effects of these impurity ions on neoclassical transport in toroidal plasmas a new unlike-particle collision operator is proposed for gyrokinetic particle simulation. This operator is necessary for the self-consistent study of fine ion orbit effects. An algorithm is presented for the simulation of unlike-particle collisions in gyrokinetic framework, which includes test-particle and conserving field-particle parts. The field-particle operator is designed to enforce the conservation of number, momentum and energy. It is shown that this operator correctly simulates the thermal equilibration of different plasma components. It is verified that the ambipolar radial electric field reaches steady state when the total radial guiding center particle current vanishes.