Particle Simulation of Coulomb Collisions: Comparing the Methods of Takizuka & Abe and Nanbu

Journal Article · Tue May 22 00:00:00 EDT 2007 · Journal of Computational Physics

OSTI ID:942017

Wang, C; Lin, T; Caflisch, R; Cohen, B; Dimits, A

The interactions of charged particles in a plasma are in a plasma is governed by the long-range Coulomb collision. We compare two widely used Monte Carlo models for Coulomb collisions. One was developed by Takizuka and Abe in 1977, the other was developed by Nanbu in 1997. We perform deterministic and stochastic error analysis with respect to particle number and time step. The two models produce similar stochastic errors, but Nanbu's model gives smaller time step errors. Error comparisons between these two methods are presented.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-48
• OSTI ID: 942017
• Report Number(s): UCRL-JRNL-231148; JCTPAH; TRN: US0807508
• Journal Information: Journal of Computational Physics, Vol. 227, Issue 9; ISSN 0021-9991
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION
CHARGED PARTICLES
PLASMA
SIMULATION