Comprehensive suite of codes for plasma-edge modelling Original Research Article

The various aspects of plasma-edge physics are included in a comprehensive suite of codes having applications from industrial plasmas to fusion devices. Here the basic ideas, status, and relationship of the codes are summarized: Plasma-wall interaction effects on a microscopic length-scale (e.g., chemical sputtering effects) are studied with molecular dynamics. Mesoscale effects (e.g., sputtering and diffusion in amorphous materials) are analysed with Monte Carlo methods (kinetic Monte Carlo with input from molecular dynamics or experiment or binary collision approximation). A full kinetic description (including ions, electrons, neutrals and their collisions) is possible for some low-temperature plasmas (e.g., electron cyclotron resonance heated methane plasmas) and for qualitative studies of edge plasma effects in fusion edge plasmas. Fluid transport codes for the edge of magnetically confined plasmas (2D tokamaks, tokamaks with ergodic perturbations, 3D stellarators) are necessary for understanding better the complex physics in such devices. The different code levels provide physics which is embodied in simplified models for those above and below it in the hierarchy or for those linked across various boundary regions.