A new f method for neoclassical transport studies

A new f method is presented in detail to solve the drift kinetic equation for the simulation study of neoclassical transport. It is demonstrated that valid results essentially rely on the correct evaluation of the marker density g in the weight calculation. A new weighting scheme is developed without assuming g in the weight equation for advancing particle weights, unlike previous schemes. This scheme employs an additional weight function to directly solve g from its kinetic equation based on the f method itself. Therefore, the severe constraint that the real marker distribution must be consistent with the initially assumed g is relaxed. An improved like-particle collision scheme is also presented. By compensating for momentum, energy and particle losses, the conservations of all three quantities are greatly improved during collisions. With the improvement in both the like-particle collision scheme and the weighting scheme, the f simulation shows a significantly improved performance. The new f method is applied to the study of ion neoclassical transports due to self-collisions, taking the effect of finite orbit width into account. The ion thermal transport near the magnetic axis is shown to be greatly reduced from its conventional neoclassical level, like that of previous f simulations. On the other hand, the direct particle loss from the confinement region may strongly increase the ion thermal transport near the edge. It is found that the ion parallel flow near the axis is also largely reduced due to non-standard orbit topology.