Related papers: Non-Maxwellian Ion Distribution in the Equatorial …
Plasmas in Earth's outer magnetosphere, magnetosheath, and solar wind are essentially collisionless. This means particle distributions are not typically in thermodynamic equilibrium and deviate significantly from Maxwellian distributions.…
In magnetized plasma physics, almost all developed analytic theories assume a Maxwellian distribution function (MDF) and in some cases small deviations are described using the perturbation theory. The deviations with respect to the…
Coulomb collisions in plasmas are typically modeled using the Boltzmann collision operator, or its variants, which apply to weakly magnetized plasmas in which the typical gyroradius of particles significantly exceeds the Debye length.…
In this work, we examine the validity of several common simplifying assumptions used in numerical neoclassical calculations for nonaxisymmetric plasmas, both by using a new continuum drift-kinetic code and by considering analytic properties…
We perform 2.5D hybrid simulations with massless fluid electrons and kinetic particle-in-cell ions to study the temporal evolution of ion temperatures, temperature anisotropies and velocity distribution functions in relation to the…
A possible solution to the unexplained high intensity hard x-ray (HXR) emission observable during solar flares was investigated via 3D fully relativistic, electromagnetic particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations with realistic ion to electron…
A low pressure discharge sustained in molecular hydrogen with help of the electron cyclotron resonance heating at a frequency of 2.45 GHz is simulated using a fully electromagnetic implicit charge- and energy-conserving…
This paper presents a molecular dynamics simulation of an inelastic gas, where collisions between molecules are characterized by a coefficient of restitution less than unity. The simulation employs an event-driven algorithm to efficiently…
We discuss dissipative processes in strongly gyrotropic, nearly collisionless plasma in clusters of galaxies (ICM). First, we point out that Braginsky theory, which assumes that collisions are more frequent that the system's dynamical time…
Space plasmas are weakly collisional since characteristic time scales related to Coulomb collisions are much larger than those of Larmor gyration or wave--particle interactions. Thus, wave activity is likely to drive some of the non-thermal…
In this article, we propose a generalized model for nonequilibrium vibrational energy distribution functions. The model can be used, in place of equilibrium (Boltzmann) distribution functions, when deriving reaction rate constants for…
After developing a scattering theory for grazing collisions in general noncanonical phase spaces, we introduce a guiding center collision operator in five-dimensional phase space designed for plasma regimes characterized by long wavelengths…
Dynamics of inelastic gases are studied within the framework of random collision processes. The corresponding Boltzmann equation with uniform collision rates is solved analytically for gases, impurities, and mixtures. Generally, the energy…
Nonlinear electron kinetic structures are regularly observed in space and experimental magnetized plasmas, called electron phase-space holes (EHs). The existence of EHs is conditioned and varies according to the ambient magnetic field and…
X-ray observations are a direct diagnostic of fast electrons produced in solar flares, energized during the energy release process and directed towards the Sun. Since the properties of accelerated electrons can be substantially changed…
The kinetic effects of electrons are important to long wavelength magnetohydrodynamic(MHD)instabilities and short wavelength drift-Alfvenic instabilities responsible for turbulence transport in magnetized plasmas, since the non-adiabatic…
The simulation of non-equilibrium electron distributions is essential for capturing light-metal interactions and therefore the study of photoabsorption, photocatalysis, laser ablation, and many other phenomena. Current methodologies, such…
One of the fundamental open questions in plasma physics is the role of non-thermal particles distributions in poorly collisional plasma environments, a system commonly found throughout the Universe, e.g. the solar wind and the Earth's…
Simulating fully kinetic, two-species plasmas is computationally challenging due to the stiff multiscale dynamics of electrons and ions. While enforcing a quasi-neutral time evolution mitigates this stiffness, it requires an electric…
Kinetic plasma studies often require computing integrals of the velocity distribution over a complex-valued pole. The standard method is to solve the integral in the complex plane using the Plemelj theorem, resulting in the standard plasma…