Limitations

The following is a list of current limitations of Raytrax.

Input formats

• To load MHD equilibria, only VMEC++ is supported so far. Note that VMEC++ is interoperable with SIMSOPT and can read legacy VMEC output files as well.

Beam representation

• The beam is currently represented as a single ray, which is a good approximation for narrow beams with small divergence. However, for wider beams or those with significant divergence, a more accurate representation would be to use a bundle of rays or a Gaussian beam model, as implemented e.g. in TRAVIS. This is planned for future releases.

Physics

• For tracing, only the cold plasma dielectric tensor is implemented so far.
• Electron cyclotron emission (ECE) is not yet implemented.
• Electron cyclotron current drive (ECCD) is not yet implemented.

Validation

• Raytrax has not been fully validated against existing ray tracing codes or experimental data yet.