Characterization of strange attractors in drift wave microturbulence

A multigrid particle-in-cell algorithm for a shearless slab drift wave model with kinetic electrons is presented. The algorithm, which is based on an exact separation of adiabatic and nonadiabatic electron responses, is used to investigate the presence of strange attractors in drift wave turbulence. Although the simulation model has a large number of degrees of freedom, it is found that the strange attractor is low-dimensional and that it is strongly affected by dissipative (collisional) effects.