The EIRENE and B2-EIRENE Codes

TLDR

EIRENE and its extension B2‑EIRENE are Monte Carlo codes for neutral gas transport in fusion plasmas, originally developed for TEXTOR in the 1980s and now widely used worldwide. The code was developed to investigate neutral gas transport in magnetically confined plasmas. EIRENE is a flexible Monte Carlo solver used globally in fusion labs, capable of stochastic solutions to linear kinetic transport equations and routinely coupled with plasma fluid codes such as B2 for edge physics and ITER divertor design.

Abstract

The EIRENE neutral gas transport Monte Carlo code has been developed initially for TEXTOR since the early 1980s. It is currently applied worldwide in most fusion laboratories for a large variety of different purposes. The main goal of code development was to provide a tool to investigate neutral gas transport in magnetically confined plasmas. But, due to its flexibility, it also can be used to solve more general linear kinetic transport equations by applying a stochastic rather than a numerical or analytical method of solution. Major applications of EIRENE are in connection with plasma fluid codes, in particular with the various versions of the B2 two-dimensional plasma edge fluid code. The combined code package B2-EIRENE was developed, again initially for TEXTOR applications, in the late 1980s. It too has become a standard tool in plasma edge science. It is currently mainly used for divertor configurations, such as by the ITER central team, to assist the design of the ITER divertor. Both the EIRENE and B2-EIRENE concepts are introduced and illustrated with sample applications.