Finite spatial-grid effects in energy-conserving particle-in-cell algorithms
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Publication:6041005
DOI10.1016/J.CPC.2020.107560arXiv1910.10833MaRDI QIDQ6041005FDOQ6041005
Authors: D. C. Barnes, Luis Chacón 
Publication date: 25 May 2023
Published in: Computer Physics Communications (Search for Journal in Brave)
Abstract: 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 instabilities originate in the aliasing of interpolation errors between mesh quantities and particles (which live in the space-time continuum). Recently, strictly energy-conserving PIC (EC-PIC) algorithms have been developed that promise enhanced robustness against aliasing instabilities. In this study, we confirm by analysis that EC-PIC is stable against aliasing instabilities for stationary plasmas. For drifting plasmas, we demonstrate by analysis and numerical experiments that, while EC-PIC algorithms are not free from these instabilities in principle, they feature a benign stability threshold for finite-temperature plasmas that make them usable in practice for a large class of problems (featuring ambipolarity and realistic ion-electron mass ratios) without the need to resolve Debye lengths spatially. We also demonstrate that this threshold is absent for the popular momentum-conserving PIC algorithms, which are therefore unstable for both drifting and stationary plasmas.
Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.10833
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Cited In (5)
- Semi-implicit particle-in-cell methods embedding sparse grid reconstructions
- A pseudospectral implicit particle-in-cell method with exact energy and charge conservation
- An energy- and charge-conserving electrostatic implicit particle-in-cell algorithm for simulations of collisional bounded plasmas
- On the Effect of Angular and Spatial Discretization on Perturbation Calculations
- Eliminating finite-grid instabilities in gyrokinetic particle-in-cell simulations
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