Local momentum balance in electromagnetic gyrokinetic systems

Abstract

The Eulerian variational formulation is presented to obtain governing equations of the electromagnetic turbulent gyrokinetic system. A local momentum balance in the system is derived from the invariance of the Lagrangian of the system under an arbitrary spatial coordinate transformation by extending the previous work [H. Sugama et al., Phys. Plasmas 28, 022312 (2021)]. Polarization and magnetization due to finite gyroradii and electromagnetic microturbulence are correctly described by the gyrokinetic Poisson equation and Ampère's law which are derived from the variational principle. Also shown is how the momentum balance is influenced by including collisions and external sources. Momentum transport due to collisions and turbulence is represented by a symmetric pressure tensor, which originates in a variational derivative of the Lagrangian with respect to the metric tensor. The relations of the axisymmetry and quasi-axisymmetry of the toroidal background magnetic field to a conservation form of the local momentum balance equation are clarified. In addition, an ensemble-averaged total momentum balance equation is shown to take the conservation form even in the background field with no symmetry when a constraint condition representing the macroscopic Ampère's law is imposed on the background field. Using the WKB representation, the ensemble-averaged pressure tensor due to the microturbulence is expressed in detail and it is verified to reproduce the toroidal momentum transport derived in previous works for axisymmetric systems. The local momentum balance equation and the pressure tensor obtained in this work present a useful reference for elaborate gyrokinetic simulation studies of momentum transport processes.