340 research outputs found
High-order Discretization of a Gyrokinetic Vlasov Model in Edge Plasma Geometry
We present a high-order spatial discretization of a continuum gyrokinetic
Vlasov model in axisymmetric tokamak edge plasma geometries. Such models
describe the phase space advection of plasma species distribution functions in
the absence of collisions. The gyrokinetic model is posed in a four-dimensional
phase space, upon which a grid is imposed when discretized. To mitigate the
computational cost associated with high-dimensional grids, we employ a
high-order discretization to reduce the grid size needed to achieve a given
level of accuracy relative to lower-order methods. Strong anisotropy induced by
the magnetic field motivates the use of mapped coordinate grids aligned with
magnetic flux surfaces. The natural partitioning of the edge geometry by the
separatrix between the closed and open field line regions leads to the
consideration of multiple mapped blocks, in what is known as a mapped
multiblock (MMB) approach. We describe the specialization of a more general
formalism that we have developed for the construction of high-order,
finite-volume discretizations on MMB grids, yielding the accurate evaluation of
the gyrokinetic Vlasov operator, the metric factors resulting from the MMB
coordinate mappings, and the interaction of blocks at adjacent boundaries. Our
conservative formulation of the gyrokinetic Vlasov model incorporates the fact
that the phase space velocity has zero divergence, which must be preserved
discretely to avoid truncation error accumulation. We describe an approach for
the discrete evaluation of the gyrokinetic phase space velocity that preserves
the divergence-free property to machine precision
High Order Maximum Principle Preserving Semi-Lagrangian Finite Difference WENO schemes for the Vlasov Equation
In this paper, we propose the parametrized maximum principle preserving (MPP)
flux limiter, originally developed in [Z. Xu, Math. Comp., (2013), in press],
to the semi- Lagrangian finite difference weighted essentially non-oscillatory
scheme for solving the Vlasov equation. The MPP flux limiter is proved to
maintain up to fourth order accuracy for the semi-Lagrangian finite difference
scheme without any time step restriction. Numerical studies on the
Vlasov-Poisson system demonstrate the performance of the proposed method and
its ability in preserving the positivity of the probability distribution
function while maintaining the high order accuracy
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Mini-Workshop: Innovative Trends in the Numerical Analysis and Simulation of Kinetic Equations
In multiscale modeling hierarchy, kinetic theory plays a vital role in connecting microscopic Newtonian mechanics and macroscopic continuum mechanics. As computing power grows, numerical simulation of kinetic equations has become possible and undergone rapid development over the past decade. Yet the unique challenges arising in these equations, such as highdimensionality, multiple scales, random inputs, positivity, entropy dissipation, etc., call for new advances of numerical methods. This mini-workshop brought together both senior and junior researchers working on various fastpaced growing numerical aspects of kinetic equations. The topics include, but were not limited to, uncertainty quantification, structure-preserving methods, phase transitions, asymptotic-preserving schemes, and fast methods for kinetic equations
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