Energy balance for 6D kinetic ions with adiabatic electrons

TL;DR

This paper presents a new method for calculating energy and particle fluxes in 6D kinetic plasma systems, reducing oscillations and enabling detailed analysis of gyrokinetic and non-gyrokinetic contributions, with a highly efficient semi-Lagrangian solver.

Contribution

A novel approach for flux calculation in 6D kinetic Vlasov systems that reduces gyrooscillations and identifies various heat flux contributions, coupled with an efficient semi-Lagrangian solver for plasma simulations.

Findings

Flux calculations exhibit fewer gyrooscillations.

Method enables separation of gyrokinetic and non-gyrokinetic heat fluxes.

Solver accurately simulates plasma waves and turbulence beyond cyclotron frequency.

Abstract

This paper investigates the energy fluxes for the 6D kinetic Vlasov system. We introduce a novel method for calculating particle and energy flows within this framework which allows for the determination of energy and particle fluxes, as well as the Poynting flux, directly from the system's moments such as kinetic energy density, momentum transfer tensor. The fluxes computed using the new method exhibit fewer gyrooscillations. This approach also enables the identification of both the gyrokinetic $\vec{E} \times \vec{B}$ heat flux and additional non-gyrokinetic contributions, while simultaneously reducing inherent gyrooscillations in the energy and particle fluxes. Our semi-Lagrangian solver for the 6D kinetic Vlasov system, features a highly efficient scheme to address the $\vec v \times \vec B$ acceleration from the strong background magnetic field allows for the simulation of plasma waves and turbulence with frequencies extending beyond the cyclotron frequency, independent of gradient strength or fluctuation levels. The solver has been rigorously tested in the low-frequency regime for dispersion relations and energy fluxes in both linear and nonlinear scenarios.