1,413 research outputs found
Kinetic properties of particle-in-cell simulations compromised by Monte Carlo collisions
he particle-in-cell method with Monte Carlo collisions is frequently used when a detailed kinetic simulation of a weakly collisional plasma is required. In such cases, one usually desires, inter alia, an accurate calculation of the particle distribution functions in velocity space. However, velocity space diffusion affects most, perhaps all, kinetic simulations to some degree, leading to numerical thermalization (i.e., relaxation of the velocity distribution toward a Maxwellian), and consequently distortion of the true velocity distribution functions, among other undesirable effects. The rate of such thermalization can be considered a figure of merit for kinetic simulations. This article shows that, contrary to previous assumption, the addition of Monte Carlo collisions to a one-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation seriously degrades certain properties of the simulation. In particular, the thermalization time can be reduced by as much as three orders of magnitude. This effect makes obtaining strictly converged simulation results difficult in many cases of practical interest
Inductive and Electrostatic Acceleration in Relativistic Jet-Plasma Interactions
We report on the observation of rapid particle acceleration in numerical
simulations of relativistic jet-plasma interactions and discuss the underlying
mechanisms. The dynamics of a charge-neutral, narrow, electron-positron jet
propagating through an unmagnetized electron-ion plasma was investigated using
a three-dimensional, electromagnetic, particle-in-cell computer code. The
interaction excited magnetic filamentation as well as electrostatic plasma
instabilities. In some cases, the longitudinal electric fields generated
inductively and electrostatically reached the cold plasma wave-breaking limit,
and the longitudinal momentum of about half the positrons increased by 50% with
a maximum gain exceeding a factor of 2 during the simulation period. Particle
acceleration via these mechanisms occurred when the criteria for Weibel
instability were satisfied.Comment: Revised for Phys. Rev. Lett. Please see publised version for best
graphic
Ultraviolet avalanche in anisotropic non-Abelian plasmas
We present solutions of coupled particle-field evolution in classical U(1)
and SU(2) gauge theories in real time on three-dimensional lattices. For
strongly anisotropic particle momentum distributions, we find qualitatively
different behavior for the two theories when the field strength is high enough
that non-Abelian self-interactions matter for SU(2). It appears that the energy
drained by a Weibel-like plasma instability from the particles does not build
up exponentially in transverse magnetic fields but instead returns,
isotropically, to the hard scale via a rapid avalanche into the ultraviolet.Comment: 22 pages, 10 figures; v3: small textual changes; updated to
correspond with version to appear in publicatio
A generalized nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation as model for turbulence, collapse, and inverse cascade
A two-dimensional generalized cubic nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation with
complex coefficients for the group dispersion and nonlinear terms is used to
investigate the evolution of a finite-amplitude localized initial perturbation.
It is found that modulation of the latter can lead to side-band formation, wave
condensation, collapse, turbulence, and inverse cascade, although not all
together nor in that order.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure
New combined PIC-MCC approach for fast simulation of a radio frequency discharge at low gas pressure
A new combined PIC-MCC approach is developed for accurate and fast simulation
of a radio frequency discharge at low gas pressure and high density of plasma.
Test calculations of transition between different modes of electron heating in
a ccrf discharge in helium and argon show a good agreement with experimental
data.
We demonstrate high efficiency of the combined PIC-MCC algorithm, especially
for the collisionless regime of electron heating.Comment: 6 paged, 8 figure
Multi-GPU Acceleration of the iPIC3D Implicit Particle-in-Cell Code
iPIC3D is a widely used massively parallel Particle-in-Cell code for the
simulation of space plasmas. However, its current implementation does not
support execution on multiple GPUs. In this paper, we describe the porting of
iPIC3D particle mover to GPUs and the optimization steps to increase the
performance and parallel scaling on multiple GPUs. We analyze the strong
scaling of the mover on two GPU clusters and evaluate its performance and
acceleration. The optimized GPU version which uses pinned memory and
asynchronous data prefetching outperform their corresponding CPU versions by
5-10x on two different systems equipped with NVIDIA K80 and V100 GPUs.Comment: Accepted for publication in ICCS 201
Particle Energization in an Expanding Magnetized Relativistic Plasma
Using a 2-1/2-dimensional particle-in-cell (PIC) code to simulate the
relativistic expansion of a magnetized collisionless plasma into a vacuum, we
report a new mechanism in which the magnetic energy is efficiently converted
into the directed kinetic energy of a small fraction of surface particles. We
study this mechanism for both electron-positron and electron-ion (mi/me=100, me
is the electron rest mass) plasmas. For the electron-positron case the pairs
can be accelerated to ultra-relativistic energies. For electron-ion plasmas
most of the energy gain goes to the ions.Comment: 7 pages text plus 5 figures, accepted for publication by Physical
Review Letter
Tunable high-energy ion source via oblique laser pulse incidence on a double-layer target
The laser-driven acceleration of high quality proton beams from a
double-layer target, comprised of a high-Z ion layer and a thin disk of
hydrogen, is investigated with three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations
in the case of oblique incidence of a laser pulse. It is shown that the proton
beam energy reaches its maximum at a certain incidence angle of the laser
pulse, where it can be much greater than the energy at normal incidence. The
proton beam propagates at some angle with respect to the target surface normal,
as determined by the proton energy and the incidence angle
An alternative to the plasma emission model: Particle-In-Cell, self-consistent electromagnetic wave emission simulations of solar type III radio bursts
1.5D PIC, relativistic, fully electromagnetic (EM) simulations are used to
model EM wave emission generation in the context of solar type III radio
bursts. The model studies generation of EM waves by a super-thermal, hot beam
of electrons injected into a plasma thread that contains uniform longitudinal
magnetic field and a parabolic density gradient. In effect, a single magnetic
line connecting Sun to earth is considered, for which several cases are
studied. (i) We find that the physical system without a beam is stable and only
low amplitude level EM drift waves (noise) are excited. (ii) The beam injection
direction is controlled by setting either longitudinal or oblique electron
initial drift speed, i.e. by setting the beam pitch angle. In the case of zero
pitch angle, the beam excites only electrostatic, standing waves, oscillating
at plasma frequency, in the beam injection spatial location, and only low level
EM drift wave noise is also generated. (iii) In the case of oblique beam pitch
angles, again electrostatic waves with same properties are excited. However,
now the beam also generates EM waves with the properties commensurate to type
III radio bursts. The latter is evidenced by the wavelet analysis of transverse
electric field component, which shows that as the beam moves to the regions of
lower density, frequency of the EM waves drops accordingly. (iv) When the
density gradient is removed, electron beam with an oblique pitch angle still
generates the EM radiation. However, in the latter case no frequency decrease
is seen. Within the limitations of the model, the study presents the first
attempt to produce simulated dynamical spectrum of type III radio bursts in
fully kinetic plasma model. The latter is based on 1.5D non-zero pitch angle
(non-gyrotropic) electron beam, that is an alternative to the plasma emission
classical mechanism.Comment: Physics of Plasmas, in press, May 2011 issue (final accepted version
On particle acceleration and trapping by Poynting flux dominated flows
Using particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations, we study the evolution of a
strongly magnetized plasma slab propagating into a finite density ambient
medium. Like previous work, we find that the slab breaks into discrete magnetic
pulses. The subsequent evolution is consistent with diamagnetic relativistic
pulse acceleration of \cite{liangetal2003}. Unlike previous work, we use the
actual electron to proton mass ratio and focus on understanding trapping vs.
transmission of the ambient plasma by the pulses and on the particle
acceleration spectra. We find that the accelerated electron distribution
internal to the slab develops a double-power law. We predict that emission from
reflected/trapped external electrons will peak after that of the internal
electrons. We also find that the thin discrete pulses trap ambient electrons
but allow protons to pass through, resulting in less drag on the pulse than in
the case of trapping of both species. Poynting flux dominated scenarios have
been proposed as the driver of relativistic outflows and particle acceleration
in the most powerful astrophysical jets.Comment: 25 pages, Accepted by Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusio
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