A fully implicit, conservative, non-linear, electromagnetic hybrid particle-ion/fluid-electron algorithm

• Published in: Journal of computational physics Vol. 376; pp. 597 - 616
• Main Authors: Stanier, A., Chacón, L., Chen, G.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge Elsevier Inc 01.01.2019; Elsevier Science Ltd
• Subjects: Algorithms; Computational physics; Conservative; Electromagnetism; Electrons; Energy conservation; Finite element method; Finite grid instability; Hybrid; Implicit; Interpolation; Noise reduction; Particle in cell technique; Particle-in-cell; Plasma; Plasmas (physics); Shape functions; Stability; Three dimensional models; Hybrid; Plasma; Implicit; Finite grid instability; Particle-in-cell; Conservative
• ISSN: 0021-9991; 1090-2716; 1090-2716
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jcp.2018.09.038

The quasi-neutral hybrid model with kinetic ions and fluid electrons is a promising approach for bridging the inherent multi-scale nature of many problems in space and laboratory plasmas. Here, a novel, implicit, particle-in-cell based scheme for the hybrid model is derived for fully 3D electromagnetic problems with multiple ion species, which features global mass, momentum and energy conservation. The scheme includes sub-cycling and orbit-averaging for the ions, with cell-centered finite differences and implicit midpoint time advance. To reduce discrete particle noise, the scheme allows arbitrary-order shape functions for the particle-mesh interpolations and the application of conservative binomial smoothing. The algorithm is verified for a number of test problems to demonstrate the correctness of the implementation, the unique conservation properties, and the favorable stability properties of the new scheme. In particular, there is no indication of unstable growth of the finite-grid instability for a population of cold ions drifting through a uniform spatial mesh, in a set-up where several commonly used non-conservative schemes are highly unstable. •A novel, conservative particle-in-cell based scheme for the hybrid (kinetic ion and fluid electron) plasma model.•Extended for multi-scale simulations using sub-cycling and orbit-averaging of kinetic ions.•No indication of finite-grid instability (present in non-conservative schemes) for cold ion beam moving through spatial grid.