2024/08/30 by Milinda Fernando, Fernando, Milinda, Daniil Bochkov +13
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Computational Engineering #Computational Physics (physics.comp-ph) #FOS: Computer and information sciences #FOS: Mathematics #FOS: Physical sciences #Finance #Gas Dynamics and Kinetic Theory #Numerical Analysis (math.NA) #Plasma Physics (physics.plasm-ph) #and Science (cs.CE)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2409.00207
openalex publication_date 2024/08/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We present a numerical method for the velocity-space, spatially homogeneous, collisional Boltzmann equation for electron transport in low-temperature plasma (LTP) conditions. Modeling LTP plasmas is useful in many applications, including advanced manufacturing, material processing, semiconductor processing, and hypersonics, to name a few. Most state-of-the-art methods for electron kinetics are based on Monte-Carlo sampling for collisions combined with Lagrangian particle-in-cell methods. We discuss an Eulerian solver that approximates the electron velocity distribution function using spherical harmonics (angular components) and B-splines (energy component). Our solver supports electron-heavy elastic and inelastic binary collisions, electron-electron Coulomb interactions, steady-state and transient dynamics, and an arbitrary nmber of angular terms in the electron distribution function. We report convergence results and compare our solver to two other codes: an in-house particle Monte-Carlo ethod; and Bolsig+, a state-of-the-art Eulerian solver for electron transport in LTPs. Furthermore, we use our solver to study the relaxation time scales of the higher-order anisotropic correction terms. Our code is open-source and provides an interface that allows coupling to multiphysics simulations of low-temperature plasmas.