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Simulating streamer discharges in 3D with the parallel adaptive Afivo framework
We present an open-source plasma fluid code for 2D, cylindrical and 3D
simulations of streamer discharges, based on the Afivo framework that features
adaptive mesh refinement, geometric multigrid methods for Poisson's equation,
and OpenMP parallelism. We describe the numerical implementation of a fluid
model of the drift-diffusion-reaction type, combined with the local field
approximation. Then we demonstrate its functionality with 3D simulations of
long positive streamers in nitrogen in undervolted gaps, using three examples.
The first example shows how a stochastic background density affects streamer
propagation and branching. The second one focuses on the interaction of a
streamer with preionized regions, and the third one investigates the
interaction between two streamers. The simulations run on up to grid
cells within less than a day. Without mesh refinement, they would require
grid cells
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