Spectral solver for multi-scale plasma physics simulations with dynamically adaptive number of moments

• A spectral method for kinetic plasma simulations based on the expansion of the velocity distribution function in a variable number of Hermite polynomials is presented. The method is based on a set of non-linear equations that is solved to determine the coefficients of the Hermite expansion satisfying the Vlasov and Poisson equations. In this paper, we first show that this technique combines the fluid and kinetic approaches into one framework. Second, we present an adaptive strategy to increase and decrease the number of Hermite functions dynamically during the simulation. The technique is applied to the Landau damping and two-stream instability test problems. Performance results show 21% and 47% saving of total simulation time in the Landau and two-stream instability test cases, respectively.

Ämnesord

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Elektroteknik och elektronik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Fluid-kinetic coupling

Plasma simulations

Spectral methods

Distribution functions

Kinetics

Plasma simulation

Spectroscopy

Vlasov equation

Adaptive strategy

Hermite expansion

Hermite functions

Hermite polynomials

Kinetic approach

Kinetic coupling

Two stream instability

Polynomials

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)