Largest Particle Simulations Downgrade the Runaway Electron Risk for ITER

Abstract

Fusion energy will be the ultimate clean energy source for mankind. One of the most visible concerns of the future fusion device is the threat of deleterious runaway electrons (REs) produced during unexpected disruptions of the fusion plasma. Both efficient long-term algorithms and super-large scale computing power are necessary to reveal the complex dynamics of REs in a realistic fusion reactor. In the present study, we deploy the world's fastest supercomputer, Sunway TaihuLight, and the newly developed relativistic volume-preserving algorithm to carry out long-term particle simulations of 10^7 sampled REs in 6D phase space, which involves simulation scale of 10^18 particle-steps, the largest ever achieved in fusion research. Our simulations show that in a realistic fusion reactor, the concern of REs is not as serious as previously thought. Specifically, REs are confined much better than previously predicted and the maximum average energy is in the range of 150MeV, less than half of previous estimate.