The Fluid-Kinetic Particle-in-Cell Solver for Plasma Simulations

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel fluid-kinetic Particle-in-Cell solver that combines multi-fluid and Maxwell's equations for plasma simulations, enabling efficient kinetic effects modeling over fluid time scales.

Contribution

It develops a self-consistent method that retains kinetic effects within a multi-fluid framework using implicit discretization for plasma simulations.

Findings

Successfully tested on ion cyclotron resonance

Effective in magnetic reconnection simulations

Retains kinetic effects in fluid-scale simulations

Abstract

A new method that solves concurrently the multi-fluid and Maxwell's equations has been developed for plasma simulations. By calculating the stress tensor in the multi-fluid momentum equation by means of computational particles moving in a self-consistent electromagnetic field, the kinetic effects are retained while solving the multi-fluid equations. The Maxwell's and multi-fluid equations are discretized implicitly in time enabling kinetic simulations over time scales typical of the fluid simulations. The fluid-kinetic Particle-in-Cell solver has been implemented in a three-dimensional electromagnetic code, and tested against the ion cyclotron resonance and magnetic reconnection problems. The new method is a promising approach for coupling fluid and kinetic methods in a unified framework.