Plasma State Component

Software Status Current Version: 1.001; no recent updates. Implemented as 3 libraries layered over the NTCC library set: xplasma, pspline, … Location of plasma state libraries –SWIM svn repository –NTCC distribution (formal module is planned). New visualization application: cstate –Compare 2 or 3 states or view a single state.

Near Term Upgrades Add Torques (angular momentum sources). Reduced Species List: –Many components don’t need full impurity charge state spectrum. –Reduced list for Z>2 elements, with 2 proxy elements at low & high end of impurity Z range Zeff and Quasineutrality conserved. –Need to identify software component to maintain proxy element densities… Plasma State could trigger off updates to do it.

Likely Future Upgrades C/C++ get/set access to state elements. –For FACETS; would help Python access also. Representation of L. Zakharov ESI data: –Bicubic Hermite representation. –Existing internal spline representation can be converted without affecting applications. –New interface can be added to enable external control of Hermite node derivatives.

Issue: Update Propagation Long running jobs need stable set of binary executables: –Each run owns a private set of binaries? –This is done in TRANSP production system. –Avoid constraint on code development. Many things will need to be added to the state over time: –How to minimize disruption to component developers?

Issue: Machine Description Add “Machine Description” section to plasma state? –Make loadable from database of namelists: “DIII_rev1”, “DIII_rev2”, “CMOD_rev1”, … –Leave elements modifiable by applications? But prevent changes “after initialization”? –Who defines contents? Try for compatibility with EU ITM / CPO effort? –Components need this now.

Issue: Fast Species Components Support multiple co-existing fast specie components: “FP” & “FPMC” for example? –This gets ugly... –Separate non-Maxwellian species lists? –Different grids for each individual specie? –Two copies of summed quantities like PBE because state can’t know if FP or FPMC will compute it? This is hard on EPA. –Further discussion needed.

Issue: Large State Data Use of state for large data, 3d or more? –Such as fast particle distribution functions… –…and fast particle source distributions. State interpolation tools limited to 3d at present. File I/O with large data elements will be expensive: may want to split state into 2d and 3d+ subsets to manage performance.

Other issues? You tell me…