2013/10/01 by A. Stamm, A. B. Stamm, B. A. Shadwick +5 · 1 citation
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #High-pressure geophysics and materials #Ionosphere and magnetosphere dynamics #Laser-Plasma Interactions and Diagnostics #physics.comp-ph #physics.plasm-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1310.0450
IEEE Transaction on Plasma Science (TPS) Special Issue: Plenary and Invited Papers of the Pulsed Power and Plasma Science Conference (PPPS 2013)
arxiv created 2014/04/21 · arxiv updated 2014/04/22
A variational method is used to derive a self-consistent macro-particle model for relativistic electromagnetic kinetic plasma simulations. Extending earlier work [E. G. Evstatiev and B. A. Shadwick, J. Comput. Phys., vol. 245, pp. 376-398, 2013], the discretization of the electromagnetic Low Lagrangian is performed via a reduction of the phase-space distribution function onto a collection of finite-sized macro-particles of arbitrary shape and discretization of field quantities onto a spatial grid. This approach may be used with both lab frame coordinates or moving window coordinates; the latter can greatly improve computational efficiency for studying some types of laser-plasma interactions. The primary advantage of the variational approach is the preservation of Lagrangian symmetries, which in our case leads to energy conservation and thus avoids difficulties with grid heating. Additionally, this approach decouples particle size from grid spacing and relaxes restrictions on particle shape, leading to low numerical noise. The variational approach also guarantees consistent approximations in the equations of motion and is amenable to higher order methods in both space and time. We restrict our attention to the 1-1/2 dimensional case (one coordinate and two momenta). Simulations are performed with the new models and demonstrate energy conservation and low noise.