Description
The Scrape-Off-Layer of a tokamak must be understood well so as to mitigate heat loads on the plasma facing components. Fluid codes are suitable for a collisional plasma, but kinetic effects are still important in the SOL, for example near the walls or when estimating the random heat flux of particles. Using the novel moment kinetics code, a 1D simulation of plasma along a single field line in the edge of a tokamak has been simulated using both a 1D1V kinetic treatment and a 1D fluid treatment. Using a collisional heat flux closure for the fluid equations with the Krook operator, the fluid simulations are shown to strongly agree with corresponding kinetic simulations in the highly collisional limit. However, in more collisionless regimes typical of tokamak edge plasmas, the profiles vary by order unity. The comparison of results between the two codes in different collisional regimes highlights the importance of kinetic modelling in the edge, especially in the context of impurity transport. The disparity has been used to show the variation in stagnation points for trace impurities based on background profiles. Current work involves testing 2V effects such as trapping for an edge field line.