Numerical approximation of self-consistent Vlasov models for low-frequency electromagnetic phenomena

International audienceWe present a new numerical method to solve the Vlasov-Darwin and Vlasov-Poisswell systems which are approximations of the Vlasov-Maxwell equation in the asymptotic limit of the infinite speed of light. These systems model low-frequency electromagnetic phenomena in plasmas, and thus "light waves" are somewhat supressed, which in turn allows the numerical discretization to dispense with the Courant-Friedrichs-Lewy condition on the time step. We construct a numerical scheme based on semi-Lagrangian methods and time splitting techniques. We develop a four-dimensional phase space algorithm for the distribution function while the electromagnetic field is solved on a two-dimensional Cartesian grid. Finally, we present two nontrivial test cases: (a) the wave Landau damping and (b) the electromagnetic beam-plasma instability. For these cases our numerical scheme works very well and is in agreement with analytic kinetic theory

The dissipative Generalized Hydrodynamic equations and their numerical solution

Generalized Hydrodynamics (GHD) stands for a model that describes one-dimensional integrable systems in quantum physics, such as ultra-cold atoms or spin chains. Mathematically, GHD corresponds to nonlinear equations of kinetic type, where the main unknown, a statistical distribution function $f(t,z,\theta)$, lives in a phase space which is constituted by a one-dimensional position variable $z$, and a one-dimensional "kinetic" variable $\theta$, actually a wave-vector, called "rapidity". Two key features of GHD equations are first a non-local and nonlinear coupling in the advection term, and second an infinite set of conserved quantities, which prevent the system from thermalizing. To go beyond this, we consider the dissipative GHD equations, which are obtained by supplementing the right-hand side of the GHD equations with a non-local and nonlinear diffusion operator or a Boltzmann-type collision integral. In this paper, we deal with new high-order numerical methods to efficiently solve these kinetic equations. In particular, we devise novel backward semi-Lagrangian methods for solving the advective part (the so-called Vlasov equation) by using a high-order time-Taylor series expansion for the advection fields, whose successive time derivatives are obtained by a recursive procedure. This high-order temporal approximation of the advection fields are used to design new implicit/explicit Runge-Kutta semi-Lagrangian methods, which are compared to Adams-Moulton semi-Lagrangian schemes. For solving the source terms, constituted by the diffusion and collision operators, we use and compare different numerical methods of the literature

Biohybrid Polymer Capsules

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