A computationally validated quasilinear model for characterizing anomalous transport in current-carrying magnetized plasmas

Collisionless low-beta plasmas in pulsed power inertial confinement fusion experiments are strongly influenced by nonlinear kinetic physics, which is difficult to characterize and which leads to anomalous transport. To understand how microphysics governs macroscopic transport properties, a self-consistent closed-form quasilinear (QL) theory analysis is developed and validated using state-of-the-art fourth-order accurate continuum kinetic simulations. The QL model describes a fully-kinetic two-species current-carrying magnetized plasma while fully encapsulating ion and electron gyromotion. The QL system of equations are solved numerically and self-consistently, without invoking commonly-used asymptotic and/or Maxwellian approximations. The QL model is validated against nonlinear noise-free Vlasov-Poisson simulations of a two-species low-beta plasma undergoing the lower hybrid drift instability. The QL predictions are shown to be consistent with multiple aspects of the simulations. The theoretical and computational study demonstrates progress toward a validated description of the nonlinear state of current-carrying plasmas and provides bounds on the degree to which QL theory can predict anomalous properties.