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Title: Decomposition of plasma kinetic entropy into position and velocity space and the use of kinetic entropy in particle-in-cell simulations

Abstract

In this work, we describe a systematic development of kinetic entropy as a diagnostic in fully kinetic particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations and use it to interpret plasma physics processes in heliospheric, planetary, and astrophysical systems. In the beginning, we calculate kinetic entropy in two forms—the “combinatorial” form related to the logarithm of the number of microstates per macrostate and the “continuous” form related to flnf, where f is the particle distribution function. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each and discuss subtleties about implementing them in PIC codes. Using collisionless PIC simulations that are two-dimensional in position space and three-dimensional in velocity space, we verify the implementation of the kinetic entropy diagnostics and discuss how to optimize numerical parameters to ensure accurate results. We show the total kinetic entropy is conserved to three percent in an optimized simulation of antiparallel magnetic reconnection. Kinetic entropy can be decomposed into a sum of a position space entropy and a velocity space entropy, and we use this to investigate the nature of kinetic entropy transport during collisionless reconnection. We find the velocity space entropy of both electrons and ions increases in time due to plasma heating during magnetic reconnection, as the position spacemore » entropy decreases due to plasma compression. This project uses collisionless simulations, so it cannot address physical dissipation mechanisms; nonetheless, the infrastructure developed here should be useful for studies of collisional or weakly collisional heliospheric, planetary, and astrophysical systems. Beyond reconnection, the diagnostic is expected to be applicable to plasma turbulence and collisionless shocks.« less

Authors:
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2]; ORCiD logo [3]; ORCiD logo [4]; ORCiD logo [4];  [5];  [6]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [3]; ORCiD logo [7];  [8]
+ Show Author Affiliations
  1. West Virginia Univ., Morgantown, WV (United States)
  2. Univ. of Calabria (Italy)
  3. Univ. of Delaware, Newark, DE (United States)
  4. Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States)
  5. Univ. of New Hampshire, Durham, NH (United States)
  6. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, MD (United States)
  7. Space Science Inst., Boulder, CO (United States)
  8. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC); Univ. of California, Oakland, CA (United States); Space Science Institute, Boulder, CO (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
OSTI Identifier:
1577595
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC02-05CH11231; SC0019315
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Physics of Plasmas
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 26; Journal Issue: 8; Journal ID: ISSN 1070-664X
Publisher:
American Institute of Physics (AIP)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY

Citation Formats

Liang, Haoming, Cassak, Paul A., Servidio, Sergio, Shay, Michael A., Drake, James F., Swisdak, Marc, Argall, Matt R., Dorelli, John C., Scime, Earl E., Matthaeus, William H., Roytershteyn, Vadim, and Delzanno, Gian Luca. Decomposition of plasma kinetic entropy into position and velocity space and the use of kinetic entropy in particle-in-cell simulations. United States: N. p., 2019. Web. doi:10.1063/1.5098888.
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Liang, Haoming, Cassak, Paul A., Servidio, Sergio, Shay, Michael A., Drake, James F., Swisdak, Marc, Argall, Matt R., Dorelli, John C., Scime, Earl E., Matthaeus, William H., Roytershteyn, Vadim, & Delzanno, Gian Luca. Decomposition of plasma kinetic entropy into position and velocity space and the use of kinetic entropy in particle-in-cell simulations. United States. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5098888
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Liang, Haoming, Cassak, Paul A., Servidio, Sergio, Shay, Michael A., Drake, James F., Swisdak, Marc, Argall, Matt R., Dorelli, John C., Scime, Earl E., Matthaeus, William H., Roytershteyn, Vadim, and Delzanno, Gian Luca. Fri . "Decomposition of plasma kinetic entropy into position and velocity space and the use of kinetic entropy in particle-in-cell simulations". United States. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5098888. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1577595.
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@article{osti_1577595,
title = {Decomposition of plasma kinetic entropy into position and velocity space and the use of kinetic entropy in particle-in-cell simulations},
author = {Liang, Haoming and Cassak, Paul A. and Servidio, Sergio and Shay, Michael A. and Drake, James F. and Swisdak, Marc and Argall, Matt R. and Dorelli, John C. and Scime, Earl E. and Matthaeus, William H. and Roytershteyn, Vadim and Delzanno, Gian Luca},
abstractNote = {In this work, we describe a systematic development of kinetic entropy as a diagnostic in fully kinetic particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations and use it to interpret plasma physics processes in heliospheric, planetary, and astrophysical systems. In the beginning, we calculate kinetic entropy in two forms—the “combinatorial” form related to the logarithm of the number of microstates per macrostate and the “continuous” form related to flnf, where f is the particle distribution function. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each and discuss subtleties about implementing them in PIC codes. Using collisionless PIC simulations that are two-dimensional in position space and three-dimensional in velocity space, we verify the implementation of the kinetic entropy diagnostics and discuss how to optimize numerical parameters to ensure accurate results. We show the total kinetic entropy is conserved to three percent in an optimized simulation of antiparallel magnetic reconnection. Kinetic entropy can be decomposed into a sum of a position space entropy and a velocity space entropy, and we use this to investigate the nature of kinetic entropy transport during collisionless reconnection. We find the velocity space entropy of both electrons and ions increases in time due to plasma heating during magnetic reconnection, as the position space entropy decreases due to plasma compression. This project uses collisionless simulations, so it cannot address physical dissipation mechanisms; nonetheless, the infrastructure developed here should be useful for studies of collisional or weakly collisional heliospheric, planetary, and astrophysical systems. Beyond reconnection, the diagnostic is expected to be applicable to plasma turbulence and collisionless shocks.},
doi = {10.1063/1.5098888},
journal = {Physics of Plasmas},
number = 8,
volume = 26,
place = {United States},
year = {2019},
month = {8}
}
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