Effects of turbulent fluctuations with prescribed statistics on passive neutral particle transport in plasmas

This work addresses the transport of neutral particles (atoms, molecules) in magnetized fusion plasmas, in the presence of density fluctuations with given statistics. The latter are described by a multivariate gamma distribution. The geometry is a 2D slab and turbulence is assumed to be statistically homogeneous. The average neutral density and ionization source, which are the quantities relevant for integrated simulations and diagnostic applications, are calculated analytically in the scattering free case. The boundary conditions and the ratio of the turbulence correlation length to the neutral mean free path are identified as the main control parameters in the problem. The non-trivial relationship between the average neutral density and the ionization source is investigated. Monte Carlo calculations including scattering are then presented, and the main trends obtained in the scattering free case are shown to be conserved.