Student Posters Repository

I use an advanced computational framework called Gkeyll to simulate plasma turbulence in the edge of magnetic confinement fusion experiments. Gkeyll uses the discontinuous Galerkin finite element method, which combines the benefits of finite element methods, such as high-order accuracy, with those of finite volume methods, including locality of data. To model the plasma, I use a gyrokinetic formulation, which averages over the fast gyro-motion of the charged particles and reduces the dimensionality of the probability distribution function. More specifically, I simulated the Texas Helimak experiment, which is useful for validating numerical codes due to its extensive diagnostics and simple, helical geometry, which is similar to the edge region of larger fusion devices. These were the first kinetic simulations of the Helimak and results agree fairly well with experimental data.