Pegasus: A new hybrid-kinetic particle-in-cell code for astrophysical plasma dynamics

JOURNAL OF COMPUTATIONAL PHYSICS

卷:259

Article

Kunz, Matthew W.¹  Stone, James M.¹  Bai, Xue-Ning² 

[1] Princeton Univ, Dept Astrophys Sci, Princeton, NJ 08544 USA

[2] Harvard Smithsonian Ctr Astrophys, Inst Theory & Computat, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA

关键词: Hybrid;    Particle-in-cell;    Numerical methods;    Plasma;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.jcp.2013.11.035

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

We describe Pegasus, a new hybrid-kinetic particle-in-cell code tailored for the study of astrophysical plasma dynamics. The code incorporates an energy-conserving particle integrator into a stable, second-order-accurate, three-stage predictor-predictor-corrector integration algorithm. The constrained transport method is used to enforce the divergence-free constraint on the magnetic field. A delta f scheme is included to facilitate a reduced-noise study of systems in which only small departures from an initial distribution function are anticipated. The effects of rotation and shear are implemented through the shearing-sheet formalism with orbital advection. These algorithms are embedded within an architecture similar to that used in the popular astrophysical magnetohydrodynamics code Athena, one that is modular, well-documented, easy to use, and efficiently parallelized for use on thousands of processors. We present a series of tests in one, two, and three spatial dimensions that demonstrate the fidelity and versatility of the code. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

【 授权许可】

Free