Stability analysis of the Euler-Poisson equations (Q1201039)

The author studies an extremely simplified one-dimensional electrostatic plasma model described by the Euler equations for hydrodynamical part and by the Poisson equation for the potential. Moreover, all the equations are linearized about an equilibrium state solution. To discretize the Poisson equation, the classical three-point finite difference scheme is used, whereas the Euler equations are solved by an upwind difference scheme. Then in the framework of the standard linear Fourier analysis some algebraic necessary and sufficient conditions for stability are derived. In particular, the sufficient conditions are the well-known CFL condition and the condition \(L\omega_ 0\Delta t < 1\), where \(L\) is a characteristic length and \(\omega_ 0\) is the plasma frequency. Finally, some numerical calculations are presented to check the effectiveness of the conditions obtained in the nonlinear case. The work seems to be rather methodological than applicable to concrete physical problems.