Gyro-average is a crucial operation to capturing the essential finite Larmor radius (FLR) effect in gyrokinetic simulation. In order to simulate strongly shaped plasmas, an innovative multi-point average method based on non-orthogonal coordinates has been developed to improve the accuracy of the original multi-point average method in gyrokinetic particle simulation. This new gyro-average method has been implemented in the gyrokinetic toroidal code (GTC). Benchmarks have been carried out to prove the accuracy of this new method. In the limit of concircular tokamak, ion temperature gradient (ITG) instability is accurately recovered for this new method and consistency is achieved. The new gyro-average method is also used to solve the gyrokinetic Poisson equation, and its correctness is confirmed in the long-wavelength limit for realistically shaped plasmas. The improved GTC code with the new gyro-average method is used to investigate the ITG instability with EAST magnetic geometry. The simulation results show that the correction induced by this new method in the linear growth rate is more significant for short-wavelength modes where the FLR effect becomes important. Due to its simplicity and accuracy, this new gyro-average method can find broader applications in simulating shaped plasmas in realistic tokamaks.
Hierarchy of second order gyrokinetic Hamiltonian models for particle-in-cell codes