Abstract
A new scheme, based on an exact separation between adiabatic and nonadiabatic electron responses, for particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations of drift-type modes is presented. The (linear and nonlinear) elliptic equations for the scalar fields are solved using a multigrid solver. The new scheme yields linear growth rates in excellent agreement with theory and it is shown to conserve energy well into the nonlinear regime. It is also demonstrated that simulations with few electrons are reliable and accurate, suggesting that large-scale, PIC simulations with electron dynamics in toroidal geometry (e.g., tokamaks and stellarators plasmas) are within reach of present-day massively-parallel supercomputers.
Similar content being viewed by others
REFERENCES
Liewer, P. C. (1985). Nucl. Fusion 25, 543.
Horton, W. (1984). Handbook of Plasma Physics, Vol. 2, Elsevier Science, Amsterdam.
Horton, W. (1999). Rev. Mod. Phys. 71, 735.
Wagner, F., and Stroth, U. (1993). Plasma Phys. Contr. Fusion 35, 1321.
Hu, G., and Krommes, J. A. (1994). Phys. Plasmas 1(4), 863.
Denton, R. E., and Kotschenreuther, M. (1995). J. Comp. Phys. 119, 283.
Fried, B. D., and Conte, S. D. (1961). Plasma Dispersion Function, Academic Press, New York.
De la Vallee Poussin, F. (1968). SIAM J. Num. Anal. 5(2), 340.
Settari, A., and Aziz, K. (1973). SIAM J. Num. Anal. 10(3), 506.
Press, W. S., Teukolsky, S. A., Vetterling, W. T., and Flannery, B. P. (1992). Numerical Recipes in Fortran, Cambridge University Press, New York.
Parker, S., and Lee, W. W. (1993). Phys. Fluids B 5(1), 77.
Lewandowski, J. L. V. (2000). Phys. Plasmas 7(8), 3360.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lewandowski, J.L.V. Particle-in-Cell Simulations with Kinetic Electrons. Journal of Scientific Computing 21, 173–192 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:JOMP.0000030074.13977.45
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/B:JOMP.0000030074.13977.45