Related papers: Grid instability growth rates for explicit, electr…
Finite-grid (or aliasing) instabilities are pervasive in particle-in-cell (PIC) plasma simulation algorithms, and force the modeler to resolve the smallest (Debye) length scale in the problem regardless of dynamical relevance. These…
Smoothing short-wavelength charge density variations can stabilize explicit electrostatic particle-in-cell (PIC) plasma simulations against grid heating and cold beam instabilities, which cause unphysical heating when the Debye length is…
A field theory and the associated structure-preserving geometric Particle-In-Cell (PIC) algorithm are developed to study low frequency electrostatic perturbations with fully kinetic ions and adiabatic electrons in magnetized plasmas. The…
The Particle-In-Cell (PIC) method is widely used in relativistic particle beam and laser plasma modeling. However, the PIC method exhibits numerical instabilities that can render unphysical simulation results or even destroy the simulation.…
The traditional explicit electrostatic momentum-conserving Particle-in-cell algorithm requires strict resolution of the electron Debye length to deliver numerical accuracy. The explicit electrostatic energy-conserving Particle-in-Cell…
We present a geometric Particle-in-Cell (PIC) algorithm on two-dimensional (2D) unstructured meshes for studying electrostatic perturbations in magnetized plasmas. In this method, ions are treated as fully kinetic particles, and electrons…
The electrostatic stability of electron-positron plasmas is investigated in the point-dipole and Z-pinch limits of dipole geometry. The kinetic dispersion relation for sub-bounce-frequency instabilities is derived and solved. For the…
Achieving large-scale kinetic modelling is a crucial task for the development and optimization of modern plasma devices. With the trend of decreasing pressure in applications such as plasma etching, kinetic simulations are necessary to…
A recent paper by Huang et al. [Computer Physics Communications 207, 123 (2016)] thoroughly analyzed the Finite Grid Instability(FGI) and spectral fidelity of standard Particle-In-Cell (PIC) methods. Numerical experiments were carried out…
The dynamics of two initially unmagnetized relativistic counter-streaming homogeneous ion-electron plasma beams are simulated in two dimensions using the particle-in-cell (PIC) method. It is shown that current filaments, which form due to…
The use of explicit particle-in-cell (PIC) method for relativistic plasma simulations is restricted by numerical heating and instabilities that may significantly constrain the choice of time and space steps. To partially eliminate these…
Particle-in-cell (PIC) plasma simulations are a productive and valued tool for the study of nonlinear plasma phenomena, yet there are basic questions about the simulation methods themselves that remain unanswered. Here we study one such…
The paper presents a 1D2V electrostatic PIC model with a drift-kinetic description of all particle types aiming at simulating classical longitudinal plasma transport in axially symmetric open traps. The model generalizes the semi-implicit…
We report a new particle in cell (PIC) method based on the semi-implicit approach. The novelty of the new method is that unlike any of its semi-implicit predecessors at the same time retains the explicit computational cycle and conserves…
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…
Numerical heating in particle-in-cell (PIC) codes currently precludes the accurate simulation of cold, relativistic plasma over long periods, severely limiting their applications in astrophysical environments. We present a spatially…
Common time-explicit numerical methods for kinetic simulations of plasmas in the low-collisions limit fall into two classes of algorithms: momentum conserving and energy conserving. Each has certain drawbacks. The PIC algorithm does not…
The origin of the Finite Grid Instability (FGI) is studied by resolving the dynamics in the 1D electrostatic Particle-In-Cell (PIC) model in spectral domain at the single particle level and at the collective motion level. The spectral…
An object's wake in a plasma with small Debye length that drifts \emph{across} the magnetic field is subject to electrostatic electron instabilities. Such situations include, for example, the moon in the solar wind wake and probes in…
We introduce a new electrostatic particle-in-cell algorithm capable of using large timesteps compared to particle gyro-period under a uniform external magnetic field. The algorithm extends earlier electrostatic fully implicit PIC…