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Particle acceleration and heating at mildly relativistic magnetized shocks in electron-ion plasma are investigated with unprecedentedly high-resolution two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations that include ion-scale shock rippling.…
Ultracold neutral plasmas provide a useful system for studying extreme parameter regimes plasma physics in an accessible laboratory setting. The parameter space of plasma physics can be characterized in part by coupling strength and degree…
By means of fully kinetic simulations, we investigate electron acceleration during magnetic reconnection in a nonrelativistic proton--electron plasma with conditions similar to solar corona and flares. We demonstrate that reconnection leads…
We use 2D particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations to study the effect of the saturated whistler instability on the viscous heating and nonthermal acceleration of electrons in a shearing, collisionless plasma with a growing magnetic field,…
This paper presents the state of the art of kinetic modeling techniques for simulating plasma kinetic dynamics in magnetospheres. We describe the critical numerical techniques for enabling large-scale kinetic simulations of magnetospheres:…
The heating of electrons in collisionless magnetic reconnection is explored in particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations with non-zero guide fields so that electrons remain magnetized. In this regime electric fields parallel to B accelerate…
Cooling of hadron beams is critically important in the next generation of hadron storage rings for delivery of unprecedented performance. One such application is the electron-ion collider presently under development in the US. The desire to…
A fully kinetic 2D axisymmetric Particle-in-Cell (PIC) model is used to examine the effects of background facility pressure on the plasma transport and propulsive efficiency of magnetic nozzles. Simulations are performed for a low-power…
We investigate facility effects on a reduced-scale gridded ion thruster plume using a fully kinetic, three-dimensional Particle-in-Cell/Monte Carlo Collision (PIC-MCC) solver coupled with a Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) neutral…
Collisionless plasma shocks are efficient sources of non-thermal particle acceleration in space and astrophysical systems. We use hybrid (kinetic ions -- fluid electrons) simulations to examine the non-linear feedback of the self-generated…
Electron and ion energization (i.e., heating and nonthermal acceleration) is a fundamental, but poorly understood, outcome of plasma turbulence. In this work, we present new results on this topic from particle-in-cell simulations of driven…
Using large-scale fully-kinetic two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations, we investigate the effects of shock rippling on electron acceleration at low-Mach-number shocks propagating in high-$\beta$ plasmas, in application to merger…
Electron current layers, which form in various natural and laboratory plasmas, are susceptible to multiple instabilities, with tearing being a prominent instability driven by current gradients. Tearing is considered a potential mechanism…
Recrystallization of glasses is important in a wide range of applications including electronics and reactive materials. Molecular dynamics (MD) has been used to provide an atomic picture of this process, but prior work has neglected the…
The expansion of a thermal pressure-driven radial blast shell into a dilute ambient plasma is examined with two-dimensional PIC simulations. The purpose is to determine if laminar shocks form in a collisionless plasma that resemble their…
Heating of charged particles via collisionless shocks, while ubiquitous in the universe, is an intriguing yet puzzling plasma phenomenon. One outstanding question is how electrons and ions approach an equilibrium after they were heated to…
The magnetosphere of Mercury is studied using an implicit full particle in cell simulation (PIC). We use a hybrid simulation where ions are full particles and electrons are considered as a fluid to start a full PIC simulation where…
Thermal instability in an electron-ion magnetized plasma, which is relevant in the intragalactic medium (IGM) of galaxy clusters, solar corona, and other two-component plasma objects is investigated. We apply the multicomponent plasma…
Effects of finite ion temperature on plasma flow in the converging-diverging magnetic field, the magnetic mirror, or equivalently, magnetic nozzle configuration, are studied using a quasineutral paraxial two-fluid MHD model with isothermal…
In systems accreting well below the Eddington rate, the plasma in the innermost regions of the disk is collisionless and two-temperature, with the ions hotter than the electrons. Yet, whether a collisionless faster-than-Coulomb energy…