Transport of momentum in full f gyrokinetics

Full f gyrokinetic formulations employ two gyrokinetic equations, one for ions and the other for electrons, and quasineutrality to obtain the ion and electron distribution functions and the electrostatic potential. This article shows with several examples that the long wavelength radial electric field obtained with full f approaches is extremely sensitive to errors in the ion and electron density since small deviations in density give rise to large, non-physical deviation in the conservation of toroidal angular momentum. For typical tokamak values, a relative error of 10 −7 in the ion or electron densities is enough to obtain the incorrect toroidal rotation. Based on the insights gained with the examples in this article, three simple tests to check transport of toroidal angular momentum in full f simulations are proposed.