No Arabic abstract
We present in this work the implementation of the Energy Conserving Semi-Implicit Method in a parallel code called ECsim. This new code is a three-dimensional, fully electromagnetic particle in cell (PIC) code. It is written in C/C++ and uses MPI to allow massive parallelization. ECsim is unconditionally stable in time, eliminates the finite grid instability, has the same cycle scheme as the explicit code with a computational cost comparable to other semi-implicit PIC codes. All this features make it a very valuable tool to address situations which have not been possible to analyze until now with other PIC codes. In this work, we show the details of the algorithm implementation and we study its performance in different systems. ECsim is compared with another semi-implicit PIC code with different time and spectral resolution, showing its sability to address situations where other codes fail.
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 ECsims 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 plasmas 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.
The recently developed energy conserving semi-implicit method (ECsim) for PIC simulation is applied to multiple scale problems where the electron-scale physics needs to be only partially retained and the interest is on the macroscopic or ion-scale processes. Unlike hybrid methods, the ECsim is capable of providing kinetic electron information, such as wave-electron interaction (Landau damping or cyclotron resonance) and non-Maxwellian electron velocity distributions. However, like hybrid, the ECsim does not need to resolve all electron scales, allowing time steps and grid spacing orders of magnitude larger than in explicit PIC schemes. The additional advantage of the ECsim is that the stability at large scale is obtained while conserving energy exactly. Three examples are presented: ion acoustic waves, electron acoustic instability and reconnection processes.
A new implicit BGK collision model using a semi-Lagrangian approach is proposed in this paper. Unlike existing models, in which the implicit BGK collision is resolved either by a temporal extrapolation or by a variable transformation, the new model removes the implicitness by tracing the particle distribution functions (PDFs) back in time along their characteristic paths during the collision process. An interpolation scheme is needed to evaluate the PDFs at the traced-back locations. By using the first-order interpolation, the resulting model allows for the straightforward replacement of ${f_{alpha}}^{eq,n+1}$ by ${f_{alpha}}^{eq,n}$ no matter where it appears. After comparing the new model with the existing models under different numerical conditions (e.g. different flux schemes and time marching schemes) and using the new model to successfully modify the variable transformation technique, three conclusions can be drawn. First, the new model can improve the accuracy by almost an order of magnitude. Second, it can slightly reduce the computational cost. Therefore, the new scheme improves accuracy without extra cost. Finally, the new model can significantly improve the ${Delta}t/{tau}$ limit compared to the temporal interpolation model while having the same ${Delta}t/{tau}$ limit as the variable transformation approach. The new scheme with a second-order interpolation is also developed and tested; however, that technique displays no advantage over the simple first-order interpolation approach. Both numerical and theoretical analyses are also provided to explain why the new implicit scheme with simple first-order interpolation can outperform the same scheme with second-order interpolation, as well as the existing temporal extrapolation and variable transformation schemes.
We present a finite-difference integration algorithm for solution of a system of differential equations containing a diffusion equation with nonlinear terms. The approach is based on Crank-Nicolson method with predictor-corrector algorithm and provides high stability and precision. Using a specific example of short-pulse laser interaction with semiconductors, we give a detailed description of the method and apply it for the solution of the corresponding system of differential equations, one of which is a nonlinear diffusion equation. The calculated dynamics of the energy density and the number density of photoexcited free carriers upon the absorption of laser energy are presented for the irradiated thin silicon film. The energy conservation within 0.2% has been achieved for the time step $10^4$ times larger than that in case of the explicit scheme, for the chosen numerical setup. We also present a few examples of successful application of the method demonstrating its benefits for the theoretical studies of laser-matter interaction problems.
A monolithic coupling between the material point method (MPM) and the finite element method (FEM) is presented. The MPM formulation described is implicit, and the exchange of information between particles and background grid is minimized. The reduced information transfer from the particles to the grid improves the stability of the method. Once the residual is assembled, the system matrix is obtained by means of automatic differentiation. In such a way, no explicit computation is required and the implementation is considerably simplified. When MPM is coupled with FEM, the MPM background grid is attached to the FEM body and the coupling is monolithic. With this strategy, no MPM particle can penetrate a FEM element, and the need for computationally expensive contact search algorithms used by existing coupling procedures is eliminated. The coupled system can be assembled with a single assembly procedure carried out element by element in a FEM fashion. Numerical results are reported to display the performances and advantages of the methods here discussed.