Particle simulation of bounded 1D plasma systems (Q1116860)

The paper discusses the various physical and numerical problems associated with the kinetic simulation of a bounded electrostatic plasma in one dimension. Problems arising from charge accumulation, particle absorption, particle reflection and particle emission at boundaries are discussed in detail. The author points out that a non-periodic system described above is not net-neutral and boundary conditions for such a system are entirely different from those in a periodic system where the electric field and the potential are usually periodic and result in a zero net charge. Further Neumann, Dirichlet or mixed boundary conditions are used unlike those in a periodic system where the boundary conditions are overspecified. Instead of using the FFT (fast Fourier transform which is suitable in periodic simulations) the author uses a direct finite difference method of solution starting with any two adjacent points (on the boundary). He then solves one-dimensional Poisson's equation for the electric potential with known volume and surface charge density with the stipulation that the electric fields at the grid points are used to accelerate the particles while the electric fields at half-integer values do not accelerate the particles. The coupling of a numerical external electric circuit (which contains an intrinsic time scale) simulation with a particle simulation is also discussed in detail. The numerical method described here is incorporated in a computer code named PDW I.