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Local conservation of energy in fully implicit PIC algorithms

Journal Article · · Journal of Computational Physics

We consider the issue of strict, fully discrete local energy conservation for a whole class of fully implicit local-charge- and global-energy-conserving particle-in-cell (PIC) algorithms. Earlier studies demonstrated these algorithms feature strict global energy conservation. However, whether a local energy conservation theorem exists (in which the local energy update is governed by a flux balance equation at every mesh cell) for these schemes is unclear. In this study, we show that a local energy conservation theorem indeed exists. We begin our analysis with the 1D electrostatic PIC model without orbit-averaging, and then generalize our conclusions to account for orbit averaging, multiple dimensions, and electromagnetic models (Darwin). In all cases, a temporally, spatially, and particle-discrete local energy conservation theorem is shown to exist, proving that these formulations (as originally proposed in the literature), in addition to being locally charge conserving and globally energy conserving, are strictly locally energy conserving as well. In contrast to earlier proofs of local conservation in the literature, which only considered continuum time, our result is valid for the fully implicit time-discrete version of all models considered, including important features such as orbit averaging. We demonstrate the local-energy-conservation property numerically with a paradigmatic numerical example.

Research Organization:
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR); USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
Grant/Contract Number:
89233218CNA000001
OSTI ID:
2523969
Report Number(s):
LA-UR--24-31332
Journal Information:
Journal of Computational Physics, Journal Name: Journal of Computational Physics Vol. 529; ISSN 0021-9991
Publisher:
ElsevierCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (16)

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Modeling of very high frequency large-electrode capacitively coupled plasmas with a fully electromagnetic particle-in-cell code journal April 2023

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