Gyrokinetic calculation of RMP penetration in a KSTAR H-mode plasma*

The global total-f electromagnetic gyrokinetic code XGC is applied to calculate the penetration of external resonant magnetic perturbations (RMPs) in a KSTAR H-mode plasma. In contrast to conventional simulations of RMP penetration with magneto-hydrodynamics (MHD), the XGC calculation retains the nonlinear kinetic interactions among the external RMP field, the screening currents in the plasma, toroidal rotation, cross-field transport, and neutral particle recycling. XGC has been successfully used to compute neoclassical and electrostatic turbulent transport with a static RMP field computed with M3D-C1 [R. Hager et al., Phys. Plasmas 27, 062301 (2020)]. For the RMP penetration study, an electromagnetic total-f version of XGC [based on the delta-f version of M. Cole et al., Physics of Plasmas 28, 034501 (2021)] is used in realistic divertor geometry. The RMPs calculated with XGC are compared against MHD calculations with M3D-C1 to assess differences between the kinetic and MHD plasma response.