New velocity-space discretization for continuum kinetic calculations and Fokker–Planck collisions

Numerical techniques for discretization of velocity space in continuum kinetic calculations are described. An efficient spectral collocation method is developed for the speed coordinate – the radius in velocity space – employing a novel set of non-classical orthogonal polynomials. For problems in which Fokker–Planck collisions are included, a common situation in plasma physics, a procedure is detailed to accurately and efficiently treat the field term in the collision operator (in the absence of gyrokinetic corrections). When species with disparate masses are included simultaneously, a careful extrapolation of the Rosenbluth potentials is performed. The techniques are demonstrated in several applications, including neoclassical calculations of the bootstrap current and plasma flows in a tokamak.