VILNIAUS KOLEGIJA/UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES

Faculty of Electronics and Informatics

NUMERICAL METHODS
IN PLASMA PHYSICS
Prepared by Saulius Kalibatas PI17E
Content

■ Numerical Methods in Plasma Physics 

■ Kinetic and Gyrokinetic Models
■ Magnetohydrodynamics
■ Geometric and structure preserving methods
■ Plasma-material modelling and foundations
■ Zonal Flows and Structure Formation in Turbulent Plasmas
■ High Level Support Team
Numerical Methods in Plasma Physics

■ Established in 2012, the Division of NMPP is developing new computational methods for fusion
research.
■ This includes numerical methods describing the complex plasma behaviour, fast software for high
performance computers and visualisation methods for the large quantities of data involved.
■ The division comprises six working groups:
■ Kinetic and Gyrokinetic Models 
■ Magnetohydrodynamics 
■ Geometric and structure preserving methods 
■ Plasma-material modelling and foundations 
■ Zonal Flows and Structure Formation in Turbulent Plasmas 
■ High Level Support Team
Kinetic and Gyrokinetic Models

■ The kinetics group of the NMPP section works on the development and analysis of
robust and efficient algorithms for numerical simulations of the kinetic equations, in its
most general six-dimensional form as well as the gyrokinetics equations.
■ Kinetic theory gives a probabilistic description of the plasma in terms of a distribution
function in phase-space. This description is more comprehensive than the magneto-
hydrodynamic description but at the same time more computationally demanding.
Magnetohydrodynamics

■ The MHD group of the NMPP division works on the study, development and analysis of
robust and efficient algorithms for numerical simulations of different
MagnetoHydroDynamics models, including Reduced and Full MHD.
■ Many aspects of the large-scale instabilities that appear in a magnetic confined plasma
can well be described in the magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) framework (with
additional physics extensions). 
■ Solving these equations globally in the complex geometry of a divertor tokamak or a
stellarator is a highly demanding task due to the strong temporal and spatial multi-scale
nature of the problem and highly anisotropic behaviour arising from strong magnetic
fields.
Geometric and structure preserving methods

■ The geometry group of the NMPP division studies the abstract mathematical structures
underlying plasma-physics models in order to design numerical algorithms that respect
important qualitative properties of the physical problem.
■ Mathematical models in plasma physics are often extremely complex, reflecting the
richness of plasma behaviour in nuclear fusion devices as well as in space and
astrophysical plasmas. 
■ This is particularly true when such models are required to be physically realistic
including full details on the geometry of the domain, boundary conditions and physics
processes.
Plasma-material modelling and
foundations
■ The PMMF group pursues two main lines of research, the interaction of energetic and/or
reactive species with surfaces and modern simulation techniques, data analysis methods
and optimal experimental design.
Zonal Flows and Structure Formation
in Turbulent Plasmas
■ The group studies the zonal flows with massively parallel computer simulations of plasma
and planetary turbulence, with the goal to make predictions of their long-term evolution and
experimentally observed switching effects between different flow patterns.
■ Everybody has already observed how a flow — for example when pouring milk into a cup of
coffee — decays turbulently into smaller and smaller vortices until it is completely consumed.
■ A strikingly unfamiliar behaviour occurs on the giant gas planets Jupiter and Saturn, which
are turbulent due to the temperature contrast between their hot interior and cold surface:
instead of producing smaller and smaller eddies, the turbulence creates planet-spanning east
and west flows.
■ These "zonal flows" are very conspicuous on the planets from the dark and bright cloud bands
that align with them along the lines of latitude.
High Level Support Team

■ The High Level Support Team (HLST) provides support to scientists from all Research
Units of the EUROfusion consortium for the development and optimization of codes to
be used on supercomputers.
■ Currently there are two supercomputers in the framework of the EUROfusion
consortium being used to perform fusion relevant simulations. One is the IFERC-CSC
supercomputer located in Rokkasho, Japan.
■ It delivers computing power of about 1.5 petaflop/s.
■ The other one is the "MARCONI" supercomputer hosted by CINECA in Bologna, Italy
with a total compute power of about 2 petaflop/s.
References

https://www.ipp.mpg.de/ippcms/eng/for/bereiche/numerik 
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