Published July 2013 | Version v1
Journal article

Automation of the guiding center expansion

  • 1. Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Princeton, New Jersey 08543 (United States)
  • 2. Department of Modern Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026 (China)

Description

We report on the use of the recently developed Mathematica package VEST (Vector Einstein Summation Tools) to automatically derive the guiding center transformation. Our Mathematica code employs a recursive procedure to derive the transformation order-by-order. This procedure has several novel features. (1) It is designed to allow the user to easily explore the guiding center transformation's numerous non-unique forms or representations. (2) The procedure proceeds entirely in cartesian position and velocity coordinates, thereby producing manifestly gyrogauge invariant results; the commonly used perpendicular unit vector fields e1,e2 are never even introduced. (3) It is easy to apply in the derivation of higher-order contributions to the guiding center transformation without fear of human error. Our code therefore stands as a useful tool for exploring subtle issues related to the physics of toroidal momentum conservation in tokamaks

Additional details

Identifiers

Publishing Information

Journal Title
Physics of Plasmas
Journal Volume
20
Journal Issue
7
Journal Page Range
p. 072105-072105.13
ISSN
1070-664X
CODEN
PHPAEN

INIS

Country of Publication
United States
Country of Input or Organization
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
INIS RN
45049008
Subject category
S70: PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY;
Descriptors DEI
AUTOMATION; PLASMA; PLASMA SIMULATION; TOKAMAK DEVICES; TRANSFORMATIONS; V CODES; VECTOR FIELDS; VECTORS
Descriptors DEC
CLOSED PLASMA DEVICES; COMPUTER CODES; SIMULATION; TENSORS; THERMONUCLEAR DEVICES

Optional Information

Notes
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