CPIC: a Curvilinear Particle-In-Cell code for plasma-material interaction studies

Bibliographic Details
Title: CPIC: a Curvilinear Particle-In-Cell code for plasma-material interaction studies
Authors: Delzanno, Gian Luca, Camporeale, Enrico, Moulton, J. David, Borovsky, Joseph E., MacDonald, Elizabeth A., Thomsen, Michelle F.
Source: IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science 41 (12), 3577-3587 (2013)
Publication Year: 2013
Collection: Physics (Other)
Subject Terms: Physics - Plasma Physics
More Details: We describe a new electrostatic Particle-In-Cell (PIC) code in curvilinear geometry called Curvilinear PIC (CPIC). The code models the microscopic (kinetic) evolution of a plasma with the PIC method, coupled with an adaptive computational grid that can conform to arbitrarily shaped domains. CPIC is particularly suited for multiscale problems associated with the interaction of complex objects with plasmas. A map is introduced between the physical space and the logical space, where the grid is uniform and Cartesian. In CPIC, most operations are performed in logical space. CPIC was designed following criteria of versatility, robustness and performance. Its main features are the use of structured meshes, a scalable field solver based on the black box multigrid algorithm and a hybrid mover, where particles' position is in logical space while the velocity is in physical space. Test examples involving the interaction of a plasma with material boundaries are presented.
Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, in press on IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science
Document Type: Working Paper
DOI: 10.1109/TPS.2013.2290060
Access URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/1311.2286
Accession Number: edsarx.1311.2286
Database: arXiv
More Details
DOI:10.1109/TPS.2013.2290060