The iterative Monte Carlo technique for collisionless plasma flow to a surface

A new technique for modelling the boundary plasma of magnetic fusion devices is described. The technique represents a natural extension of existing Monte Carlo codes, which are presently constrained to have the plasma background specified by either measurements or predictions from plasma fluid codes. The new approach, the Iterative Monte Carlo (IMC) technique, self-consistently determines the ambipolar electric field in the plasma by feeding back into the simulation the evolving plasma density using the Boltzmann relation. The IMC technique is applied, for demonstrative purposes, to the problem of collisionless one-dimensional plasma flow to a surface. Such a problem has previously been solved exactly using kinetic approaches in the published literature using two different particle source functions. Good agreement between the IMC results and the exact solutions is obtained.