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Computational Plasma Physics

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Encyclopedia of Applied and Computational Mathematics

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Plasmas and High-Energy-Density Matter

Recent advances in high-performance computing and continuing improvements in algorithms and models have opened an avenue to a deeper understanding of plasmas and at the same time provided insight into the accuracy of kinetic theory. Advanced computing architectures have allowed researchers to simulate complicated plasma processes with undreamed of fidelity. Computational plasma physics spans a wide variety of methods and applications which will be presented in an overview form. The focus will be on particle-based, continuum phase-space, and fluid-based methods relevant for warm dense matter, hot dense matter, and magnetic fusion plasmas. Unfortunately we do not cover in any detail gyro-kinetic codes used in modeling magnetic fusion plasmas.

Plasmas consist of mobile-charged particles (ions and electrons) interacting by long-range Coulombic N-body forces and exhibiting collective effects with the electric or magnetic fields. This simple definition...

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Acknowledgements

I am deeply grateful to my colleagues for their help in putting this article together. Their help was indispensable and my continued collaborations with them over the years have made me a better scientist. I wish to thank Brian Albright, Bruce Cohen, Alfredo Correa, Alex Friedman, Jeffrey Hittinger, Michael Desjarlais, Michael Murillo, Liam Stanton, Michail Tzoufras, and Vyacheslav Lukin. This work is performed under the auspices of the US Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344.

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  1. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA

    Frank R. Graziani

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  1. Frank R. Graziani
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

    Björn Engquist

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Graziani, F.R. (2015). Computational Plasma Physics. In: Engquist, B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Applied and Computational Mathematics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-70529-1_585

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