An implicit, conservative and asymptotic-preserving electrostatic particle-in-cell algorithm for arbitrarily magnetized plasmas in uniform magnetic fields

Journal Article · 22 April 2023 · Journal of Computational Physics

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcp.2023.112160 · OSTI ID:1972981

Chen, Guangye  ^[1]; Chacón, Luis  ^[1]

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1. Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

Here, we introduce a new electrostatic particle-in-cell algorithm capable of using large timesteps compared to particle gyro-period under a uniform external magnetic field. The algorithm extends earlier electrostatic fully implicit PIC implementations with a new asymptotic-preserving particle-push scheme that allows timesteps much larger than particle gyroperiods. In the large-timestep limit, the integrator preserves all particle drifts, while recovering the full orbit for small timesteps. The scheme allows for a seamless, efficient treatment of particles with coexisting magnetized and unmagnetized species, and conserves energy and charge exactly without spoiling implicit solver performance. We demonstrate by numerical experiment with several problems of variable species magnetization (diocotron instability, modified two-stream instability, and drift instability) that orders of magnitude wall-clock-time speedups vs. the standard fully implicit electrostatic PIC algorithm are possible without sacrificing solution accuracy.

• 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: 1972981
• Report Number(s): LA-UR-22-24401
• Journal Information: Journal of Computational Physics, Journal Name: Journal of Computational Physics Vol. 487; ISSN 0021-9991
• Publisher: ElsevierCopyright Statement
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English