Nonlinear gyrokinetic Maxwell-Vlasov equations using magnetic co-ordinates

Abstract

A gyrokinetic formalism using magnetic co-ordinates is used to derive self-consistent, nonlinear Maxwell–Vlasov equations that are suitable for particle simulation studies of finite-β tokamak microturbulence and its associated anomalous transport. The use of magnetic co-ordinates is an important feature of this work since it introduces the toroidal geometry naturally into our gyrokinetic formalism. The gyrokinetic formalism itself is based on the use of the action-variational Lie perturbation method of Cary & Littlejohn, and preserves the Hamiltonian structure of the original Maxwell-Vlasov system. Previous nonlinear gyrokinetic sets of equations suitable for particle simulation analysis have considered either electrostatic and shear-Alfvén perturbations in slab geometry or electrostatic perturbations in toroidal geometry. In this present work fully electromagnetic perturbations in toroidal geometry are considered.