Controlling a Vlasov-Poisson plasma by a Particle-In-Cell method based on a Monte Carlo framework

arXiv2304.02083MaRDI QIDQ6432100FDOQ6432100

Jan Bartsch, Jörg Weber, Patrik Knopf, Stefania Scheurer

Publication date: 4 April 2023

Abstract: The Vlasov-Poisson system describes the time evolution of a plasma in the so-called collisionless regime. The investigation of a high-temperature plasma that is influenced by an exterior magnetic field is one of the most significant aspects of thermonuclear fusion research. In this paper, we formulate and analyze a kinetic optimal control problem for the Vlasov-Poisson system where the control is represented by an external magnetic field. The main goal of such optimal control problems is to confine the plasma in a certain region in phase space. We first investigate the optimal control problem in terms of mathematical analysis, i.e., we show the existence of at least one global minimizer and we rigorously derive a first-order necessary optimality condition for local minimizers by the adjoint approach. Then, we build a Monte Carlo framework to solve the state equations as well as the adjoint equations by means of a Particle-In-Cell method, and we apply a nonlinear conjugate gradient method to solve the optimization problem. Eventually, we present numerical experiments that successfully validate our optimization framework.

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Monte Carlo methods (65C05) Applications of statistics to physics (62P35) Stochastic programming (90C15) Vlasov equations (35Q83) Existence theories for optimal control problems involving partial differential equations (49J20) Numerical methods based on necessary conditions (49M05)

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