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EUROfusion

Abstract of FWTOR-16 Project

Research on electromagnetic wave propagation in fusion plasmas mainly employs frequency-domain asymptotic methods, because the numerical problem is easier to solve. However, in many cases of practical interest, like O-X-B mode conversion and high-resolution mm-diagnostics, this approach becomes of limited applicability. In such problems, ray/beam tracing has proved robust in still providing a usable model, however the results must be validated against a full-wave solution. FWTOR is a Fortran code which solves Maxwell's equations for the evolution of electromagnetic wave beams in fusion plasmas. The wave propagation is followed using the FDTD method, the plasma response is formulated in terms of the generated electric current, the magnetic equilibrium can be analytic or experimental, including non-axisymmetric perturbations (e.g. due to NTMs) and density fluctuations (due to plasma turbulence), whereas the beam electric field profile can be of non-Gaussian shape. The purpose of the code is to conduct thorough investigations of the wave propagation, absorption and current drive in plasma geometry relevant to EC/IC/LH applications in ITER H&CD, reflectometry and MHD control, as well as to perform benchmarks against the currently established tools. The central aim of the proposed project is to improve the code acceleration scheme, which was developed in 2015 under HLST support and has allowed exploiting the much larger memory and CPU power of supercomputers.