Higher-order particle representation for particle-in-cell simulations

Autor: Satheesh Maheswaran, John P. Jones, Dominic A.S. Brown, Steven A. Wright, Stephen A. Jarvis, Matthew Tyler Bettencourt
Rok vydání: 2021
Předmět:
Zdroj: Journal of Computational Physics. 435:110255
ISSN: 0021-9991
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcp.2021.110255
Popis: In this paper we present an alternative approach to the representation of simulation particles for unstructured electrostatic and electromagnetic PIC simulations. In our modified PIC algorithm we represent particles as having a smooth shape function limited by some specified finite radius, r 0 . A unique feature of our approach is the representation of this shape by surrounding simulation particles with a set of virtual particles with delta shape, with fixed offsets and weights derived from Gaussian quadrature rules and the value of r 0 . As the virtual particles are purely computational, they provide the additional benefit of increasing the arithmetic intensity of traditionally memory bound particle kernels. The modified algorithm is implemented within Sandia National Laboratories' unstructured EMPIRE-PIC code, for electrostatic and electromagnetic simulations, using periodic boundary conditions. We show results for a representative set of benchmark problems, including electron orbit, a transverse electromagnetic wave propagating through a plasma, numerical heating, and a plasma slab expansion. Good error reduction across all of the chosen problems is achieved as the particles are made progressively smoother, with the optimal particle radius appearing to be problem-dependent.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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