The Fluid-Kinetic Particle-in-Cell method for plasma simulations

Abstract : A method that solves concurrently the multi-fluid and Maxwell's equations has been developed for plasma simulations. By calculating the stress tensor in the multi-fluid momentum equation by means of computational particles moving in a self-consistent electromagnetic field, the kinetic effects are retained while solving the multi-fluid equations. The Maxwell's and multi-fluid equations are discretized implicitly in time enabling kinetic simulations over time scales typical of the fluid simulations. The Fluid-Kinetic Particle-in-Cell method has been implemented in a three-dimensional electromagnetic code, and tested against the two-stream instability, the Weibel instability, the ion cyclotron resonance and magnetic reconnection problems. The method is a promising approach for coupling fluid and kinetic methods in a unified framework.