A relativistic Monte Carlo binary collision model for use in plasma particle simulation codes
Particle simulations of plasma physics phenomena employ far fewer particles than the systems which are being simulated, owing to the limited speed and memory capacity of even the most powerful supercomputers. If the simulation consists of point particles in a gridless domain, then the combination of the small number of particles in a Debye sphere and the possibility of zero-impact-parameters, large-angle scattering results in a significant enhancement of fluctuation phenomena such as collisions. Collisional processes in a simulation may be difficult because of disparate time scales. A comparison of the relevant physical time scales of the system that is being simulated usually yields a large range of values. For instance, the grid-cell transit time is usually several orders of magnitude smaller than the 90/sup 0/ scattering time. Much of the physical phenomena of interest in the simulation are due to these long-time-scale collisional processes, but short-time-scale processes (such as particle bounce times in a mirror or tokamak) must be adequately resolved if the plasma dielectric response and the plasma potential are to be accurately determined. The following paper outlines the physics and operation of the binary collision model within the electrostatic code and presents the results of computer simulations of velocity space transport which were run to test the accuracy of the model. Also discussed are the timing statistics for the collision package relative to the other major physics packages in the code, as well as recommendations on the frequency of use of the collision package within the simulation sequence.
- Research Organization:
- California Univ., Berkeley (USA). Electronics Research Lab.; Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (USA)
- DOE Contract Number:
- FG03-86ER53220
- OSTI ID:
- 6006229
- Report Number(s):
- UCB/ERL-M-87/24; ON: DE87013287; TRN: 87-033160
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: Portions of this document are illegible in microfiche products
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS
COLLISIONAL PLASMA
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
ANALYTICAL SOLUTION
ATOM TRANSPORT
BOLTZMANN STATISTICS
ELECTRON BEAMS
ELECTRON DRIFT
ELECTRON-ELECTRON COLLISIONS
ELECTRON-ION COLLISIONS
MONTE CARLO METHOD
NUMERICAL SOLUTION
PLASMA DRIFT
RELATIVISTIC RANGE
RELAXATION TIME
SCATTERING
T CODES
BEAMS
COLLISIONS
COMPUTER CODES
ELECTRON COLLISIONS
ENERGY RANGE
ION COLLISIONS
LEPTON BEAMS
NEUTRAL-PARTICLE TRANSPORT
PARTICLE BEAMS
PLASMA
RADIATION TRANSPORT
SIMULATION
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