Energetic-ion-driven MHD instabilities and transport: Simulation methods, V&V and predictions

The hybrid code MEGA developed at NIFS/Japan is now playing a world-leading role in energetic particle research. Its excellent scaling on HPC systems and the recent inclusion of realistic models for energetic ion sources and collisions enabled MEGA to perform global simulations of ITER-scale plasmas, reproduce and clarify complex nonlinear dynamics across a wide range of time scales (0.01-100 ms), and reach the degree of realism required for quantitative validation against experiments. The methods used and recent results will be discussed.Satellite Meeting on “Physics validation and control of turbulent transport and MHD in fusion plasmas