National Center for Computational Sciences

Principal Investigator: Patrick Diamond

Affiliation: University of California–San Diego

Machine: Cray XT4

Allocation: 8,000,000 processor hours

Research Summary: Predicting and controlling turbulent transport in fusion plasmas are among the most important and challenging scientific issues facing the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project. Nonlinear plasma dynamics and self-organization in complex tokamak geometry are exceedingly challenging, requiring multiscale, nonlocal processes of turbulence. In this project, researchers will employ nonlinear simulations using a gyrokinetic toroidal code (GTC) for the tokamak core and another gyrokinetic particle-in-cell code (XGC) for the tokamak edge. They will validate the predictive capability of the GTC and XGC dynamic models by comparing simulation results with the largest fusion experiments in the United States (DIII-D, ALCATOR C-MOD, and NSTX tokamaks).