Gyrokinetic flux-driven simulations in mixed TEM/ITG regime using a delta-f PIC scheme with evolving background

In the context of global gyrokinetic simulations of turbulence using a particle-in-cell framework, verifying the delta-f assumption with a fixed background distribution becomes challenging when determining quasi-steady state profiles corresponding to given sources over long time scales, where plasma profiles can evolve significantly. The advantage of low relative sampling noise afforded by the delta-f scheme is shown to be retained by considering the background as a time-evolving Maxwellian with time-dependent density and temperature profiles. Implementation of this adaptive scheme to simulate electrostatic collisionless flux-driven turbulence in tokamak plasmas show small and nonincreasing sampling noise levels, which would otherwise increase indefinitely with a stationary background scheme. The adaptive scheme furthermore allows one to reach numerically converged results of quasi-steady state with much lower marker numbers.