How to improve the diagnosis of kinetic energy in δf PIC codes

  • Authors:

  • S. Hess;F. Mottez

  • Affiliations:

  • Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA;LUTH, Observatoire de Paris, CNRS, Université Paris Diderot, 5 Place Jules Janssen, 92190 Meudon Cedex, France

  • Venue:
  • Journal of Computational Physics
  • Year:
  • 2009

Quantified Score

Hi-index 31.45

Visualization

Abstract

This paper propose to analyse the effect of the shape factor that is used in plasma PIC @df codes to make interpolations between the grid and the particles positions. In @df codes, the total density fluctuates, even when it should be conserved. We show that, in some cases, the computed non-physical part of the particle kinetic energy fluctuations is dependent on those of the total density. We deduce a method that can reduce drastically the statistical fluctuations in the diagnostics of the kinetic energy.