TY - JOUR

T1 - ECsim-CYL: Energy Conserving Semi-Implicit particle in cell simulation in axially symmetric cylindrical coordinates

AU - Gonzalez-Herrero, Diego

AU - Micera, Alfredo

AU - Boella, Elisabetta

AU - Park, Jaeyoung

AU - Lapenta, Giovanni

PY - 2019/3/1

Y1 - 2019/3/1

N2 - Based on the previously developed Energy Conserving Semi Implicit Method (ECsim) code, we present its cylindrical implementation, called ECsim-CYL, to be used for axially symmetric problems. The main motivation for the development of the cylindrical version is to greatly improve the computational speed by utilizing cylindrical symmetry. The ECsim-CYL discretizes the field equations in two-dimensional cylindrical coordinates using the finite volume method. For the particle mover, it uses a modification of ECsim's mover for cylindrical coordinates by keeping track of all three components of velocity vectors, while only keeping radial and axial coordinates of particle positions. In this paper, we describe the details of the algorithm used in the ECsim-CYL and present a series of tests to validate the accuracy of the code including a wave spectrum in a homogeneous plasma inside a cylindrical waveguide and free expansion of a spherical plasma ball in vacuum. The ECsim-CYL retains the stability properties of ECsim and conserves the energy within machine precision, while accurately describing the plasma behavior in the test cases.

AB - Based on the previously developed Energy Conserving Semi Implicit Method (ECsim) code, we present its cylindrical implementation, called ECsim-CYL, to be used for axially symmetric problems. The main motivation for the development of the cylindrical version is to greatly improve the computational speed by utilizing cylindrical symmetry. The ECsim-CYL discretizes the field equations in two-dimensional cylindrical coordinates using the finite volume method. For the particle mover, it uses a modification of ECsim's mover for cylindrical coordinates by keeping track of all three components of velocity vectors, while only keeping radial and axial coordinates of particle positions. In this paper, we describe the details of the algorithm used in the ECsim-CYL and present a series of tests to validate the accuracy of the code including a wave spectrum in a homogeneous plasma inside a cylindrical waveguide and free expansion of a spherical plasma ball in vacuum. The ECsim-CYL retains the stability properties of ECsim and conserves the energy within machine precision, while accurately describing the plasma behavior in the test cases.

KW - Particle in cell (PIC)

KW - Semi-implicit particle in cell

KW - Exactly energy conserving

KW - Axis symmetry cylindrical problem

U2 - 10.1016/j.cpc.2018.10.026

DO - 10.1016/j.cpc.2018.10.026

M3 - Journal article

VL - 236

SP - 153

EP - 163

JO - Computer Physics Communications

JF - Computer Physics Communications

SN - 0010-4655

ER -