Abstract : Quasi-linear diffusion of magnetized fast electrons in momentum space results from stimulated emission and absorption of waves packets via wave-particle resonances. Such model consists in solving the dynamics of a system of classical kinetic diffusion processes described by the balance equations for electron probability density functions (electron pdf) coupled to the time dynamics waves (quasi-particles) in a quantum process of their resonant interaction. Such description results in a Mean Field model where diffusion coefficients are determined by the local spectral energy density of excited waves whose perturbations depend on flux averages of the electron pdf. We will discuss the model and a mean field iteration scheme that simulates the dynamics of the space average model, where the energy spectrum of the excited wave time dynamics is calculated with a coefficient that depends on the electron pdf flux at a previous time step; while the time dynamics of the quasilinear model for the electron pdf is calculated by the spectral average of the quasi-particle wave under a classical resonant condition where the plasma wave frequencies couples the spectral energy to the momentum variable of the electron pdf. Recent numerical simulations will be presented showing a strong hot tail an isotropy formation and stabilization for the iteration in a 3 dimensional cylindrical model. This is work in collaboration with Kun Huang, Michael Abdelmalik and Boris Breizman, all at UT Austin.

Keywords : mean field modeling; quasilinear diffusion, finite elements method, mathematical physics