Implementation and verification of the avalanche source in a 3D full-f particle-in-cell model of relativistic electrons for studies of tokamak disruptions
Tokamak disruptions may lead to the acceleration of some electrons to relativistic energies. These so-called runaway electrons (REs) can multiply exponentially via knock-on collisions with thermal electrons. As the resulting RE avalanche is exponentially sensitive to the pre-disruption plasma current, multi-MA RE beams may form in large future devices, risking severe localized wall damage. In this work, an energy and momentum conserving knock-on collision operator is implemented in the 3D nonlinear MHD code JOREK for the full-f relativistic hybrid fluid-kinetic model that describes the REs using the particle-in-cell (PiC) approach both for full-orbit and drift-kinetic markers, which will enable accurate modeling of the RE phase-space dynamics in realistic 3D electromagnetic fields. Such a self-consistent treatment of the RE avalanche and competing losses in the stochastic fields of MHD-active plasmas is required to further the understanding of RE transport and phase-space dynamics in self-consistent interaction with the 3D plasma evolution, which is needed for developing reliable predictions as well as reliable mitigation methods. To make such novel high-fidelity simulations computationally viable, a resampling technique was also implemented to restrict the number of markers. The avalanche model is verified using analytical expressions from literature and applied to a JET-like termination scenario, demonstrating its applicability to realistic 3D MHD active scenarios. Future work on porting to accelerated high-performance computing systems will be needed to cross the long time scales involved, e.g., in periodic termination and re-avalanching that could occur in large devices like ITER.