Fuchsian methods and spacetime singularities

Fuchsian methods and their applications to the study of the structure of spacetime singularities are surveyed. The existence question for spacetimes with compact Cauchy horizons is discussed. After some basic facts concerning Fuchsian equations have been recalled, various ways in which these equations have been applied in general relativity are described. Possible future applications are indicated

An Asymptotic Preserving Maxwell Solver Resulting in the Darwin Limit of Electrodynamics

In plasma simulations, where the speed of light divided by a characteristic length is at a much higher frequency than other relevant parameters in the underlying system, such as the plasma frequency, implicit methods begin to play an important role in generating efficient solutions in these multi-scale problems. Under conditions of scale separation, one can rescale Maxwell's equations in such a way as to give a magneto static limit known as the Darwin approximation of electromagnetics. In this work, we present a new approach to solve Maxwell's equations based on a Method of Lines Transpose (MOL$^T$) formulation, combined with a fast summation method with computational complexity $O(N\log{N})$, where $N$ is the number of grid points (particles). Under appropriate scaling, we show that the proposed schemes result in asymptotic preserving methods that can recover the Darwin limit of electrodynamics

Vlasov versus reduced kinetic theories for helically symmetric equilibria

A new constant of motion for helically symmetric equilibria in the vicinity of the magnetic axis is obtained in the framework of Vlasov theory. In view of this constant of motion the Vlasov theory is compared with drift kinetic and gyrokinetic theories near axis. It turns out that as in the case of axisymmetric equilibria [H. Tasso and G. N. Throumoulopoulos, Phys. Plasmas 18, 064507 (2011)] the Vlasov current density thereon can differ appreciably from the drift kinetic and gyrokinetic current densities. This indicates some limitation on the implications of reduced kinetic theories, in particular as concerns the physics of energetic particles in the central region of magnetically confined plasmas.Comment: 14 pages. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1104.042

A dynamical adaptive tensor method for the Vlasov-Poisson system

A numerical method is proposed to solve the full-Eulerian time-dependent Vlasov-Poisson system in high dimension. The algorithm relies on the construction of a tensor decomposition of the solution whose rank is adapted at each time step. This decomposition is obtained through the use of an efficient modified Progressive Generalized Decomposition (PGD) method, whose convergence is proved. We suggest in addition a symplectic time-discretization splitting scheme that preserves the Hamiltonian properties of the system. This scheme is naturally obtained by considering the tensor structure of the approximation. The efficiency of our approach is illustrated through time-dependent 2D-2D numerical examples

Theorems on existence and global dynamics for the Einstein equations

This article is a guide to theorems on existence and global dynamics of solutions of the Einstein equations. It draws attention to open questions in the field. The local-in-time Cauchy problem, which is relatively well understood, is surveyed. Global results for solutions with various types of symmetry are discussed. A selection of results from Newtonian theory and special relativity that offer useful comparisons is presented. Treatments of global results in the case of small data and results on constructing spacetimes with prescribed singularity structure or late-time asymptotics are given. A conjectural picture of the asymptotic behaviour of general cosmological solutions of the Einstein equations is built up. Some miscellaneous topics connected with the main theme are collected in a separate section.Comment: Submitted to Living Reviews in Relativity, major update of Living Rev. Rel. 5 (2002)

Fuchsian methods and spacetime singularities

Fuchsian methods and their applications to the study of the structure of spacetime singularities are surveyed. The existence question for spacetimes with compact Cauchy horizons is discussed. After some basic facts concerning Fuchsian equations have been recalled, various ways in which these equations have been applied in general relativity are described. Possible future applications are indicated

A sharp stability criterion for the Vlasov-Maxwell system

We consider the linear stability problem for a 3D cylindrically symmetric equilibrium of the relativistic Vlasov-Maxwell system that describes a collisionless plasma. For an equilibrium whose distribution function decreases monotonically with the particle energy, we obtained a linear stability criterion in our previous paper. Here we prove that this criterion is sharp; that is, there would otherwise be an exponentially growing solution to the linearized system. Therefore for the class of symmetric Vlasov-Maxwell equilibria, we establish an energy principle for linear stability. We also treat the considerably simpler periodic 1.5D case. The new formulation introduced here is applicable as well to the nonrelativistic case, to other symmetries, and to general equilibria

A combined nodal continuous-discontinuous finite element formulation for the Maxwell problem

Continuous Galerkin formulations are appealing due to their low computational cost, whereas discontinuous Galerkin formulation facilitate adaptative mesh refinement and are more accurate in regions with jumps of physical parameters. Since many electromagnetic problems involve materials with different physical properties, this last point is very important. For this reason, in this article we have developed a combined cG–dG formulation for Maxwell’s problem that allows arbitrary finite element spaces with functins continuous in patches of finite elements and discontinuous on the interfaces of these patches. In particular, the second formulation we propose comes from a novel continuous Galerkin formulation that reduces the amount of stabilization introduced in the numerical system. In all cases, we have performed stability and convergence analyses of the methods. The outcome of this work is a new approach that keeps the low CPU cost of recent nodal continuous formulations with the ability to deal with coefficient jumps and adaptivity of discontinuous ones. All these methods have been tested using a problem with singular solution and another one with different materials, in order to prove that in fact the resulting formulations can properly deal with these problems