We propose a hybrid moment method for the multi-scale kinetic equations in the framework of the regularized moment method [7]. In this method, the fourth order moment system is chosen as the governing equations in the fluid region. When transiting from the fluid regime to the kinetic regime, the maximum entropy principle is adopted to reconstruct the kinetic distribution function, so that the information in the fluid region can be utilized thoroughly. Moreover, only one uniform set of numerical scheme is needed for both the fluid and kinetic regions. Numerical tests show the high efficiency of this new hybrid method.
In this study, an implicit scheme for the gas-kinetic scheme (GKS) on the unstructured hybrid mesh is proposed. The Spalart-Allmaras (SA) one equation turbulence model is incorporated into the implicit gas-kinetic scheme (IGKS) to predict the effects of turbulence. The implicit macroscopic governing equations are constructed and solved by the matrix-free lower-upper symmetric-Gauss-Seidel (LU-SGS) method. To reduce the number of cells and computational cost, the hybrid mesh is applied. A modified non-manifold hybrid mesh data(NHMD) is used for both unstructured hybrid mesh and uniform grid. Nu…
Hybrid-kinetic simulations describe ion-scale kinetic phenomena in space plasmas by considering ions kinetically, i.e. as particles, while electrons are modelled as a fluid. Most of the existing hybrid-kinetic codes neglect the electron mass (see chapter 3) for a simplified calculation of the electromagnetic fields. There are, however, situations in which delay in the electrons response due to the electron inertia matters. This chapter concentrates on hybrid-kinetic simulation models which take the finite mass of the electron fluid into account. First a review is given of the history of includ…
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 mag…
The hybrid kinetic-ion fluid-electron plasma model is widely used to study challenging multi-scale problems in space and laboratory plasma physics. Here, a novel conservative scheme for this model employing implicit particle-in-cell techniques is extended to arbitrary coordinate systems via curvilinear maps from logical to physical space. The scheme features a fully non-linear electromagnetic formulation with a multi-rate time advance - including sub-cycling and orbit-averaging for the kinetic ions. By careful choice of compatible particle-based kinetic-ion and mesh-based fluid-electron discre…
In this paper, the compact gas-kinetic scheme for compressible flow is extended to hybrid unstructured mesh. Based on both cell-averaged flow variables and their gradients updated from time accurate gas evolution model at cell interfaces, a compact third-order least-square-constrained reconstruction can be obtained on unstructured mesh and a multi-resolution WENO reconstruction is adopted in case of discontinuous solutions. Moreover, a compression factor for the cell-averaged gradients is proposed to take into account the possible discontinuity in flow variables at cell interface, which signif…
A hybrid kinetic-fluid model is used to study ionization waves (striations) in a low-current plasma column of DC discharges in noble gases. Coupled solutions of a kinetic equation for electrons, a drift-diffusion equation of ions, and a Poisson equation for the electric field are obtained to clarify the nature of plasma stratification in the positive column and near-electrode effects. A simplified two-level excitation-ionization model is used for the conditions when the nonlinear effects due to stepwise ionization, gas heating, and Coulomb interactions among electrons are negligible. It is con…
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 implem…
Numerical studies of shock waves in large scale systems via kinetic simulations with millions of particles are too computationally demanding to be processed in serial. In this work we focus on optimizing the parallel performance of a kinetic Monte Carlo code for astrophysical simulations such as core-collapse supernovae. Our goal is to attain a flexible program that scales well with the architecture of modern supercomputers. This approach requires a hybrid model of programming that combines a message passing interface (MPI) with a multithreading model (OpenMP) in C++. We report on our approach…
We present a new hybrid algorithm implemented in the code CHIEF (Code Hybrid with Inertial Electron Fluid) for simulations of electron-ion plasmas. The algorithm treats the ions kinetically, modeled by the Particle-in-Cell (PiC) method, and electrons as an inertial fluid, modeled by electron fluid equations without any of the approximations used in most of the other hybrid codes with an inertial electron fluid. This kind of code is appropriate to model a large variety of quasineutral plasma phenomena where the electron inertia and/or ion kinetic effects are relevant. We present here the govern…
We describe gas dynamic and plasma effects for transient plasma jets under different conditions. Our Unified Flow Solver (UFS) is evaluated for simulations of mixed continuum-rarefied flows, transient gas expansion dynamics and collisionless plasma expansion. We identify further advances that are required for hybrid fluid-kinetic simulations of laser-ablation and EEE-induced plasma jets.
Moment expansions are used as model reduction technique in kinetic gas theory to approximate the Boltzmann equation. Rarefied gas models based on so-called moment equations became increasingly popular recently. However, in a seminal paper by Holway [Phys. Fluids 7/6, (1965)] a fundamental restriction on the existence of the expansion was used to explain sub-shock behavior of shock profile solutions obtained by moment equations. Later, Weiss [Phys. Fluids 8/6, (1996)] argued that this restriction does not exist. We will revisit and discuss their findings and explain that both arguments have a c…
The entropy-based moment method is a well-known discretization for the velocity variable in kinetic equations which has many desirable theoretical properties but is difficult to implement with high-order numerical methods. The regularized entropy-based moment method was recently introduced to remove one of the main challenges in the implementation of the entropy-based moment method, namely the requirement of the realizability of the numerical solution. In this work we use the method of relative entropy to prove the convergence of the regularized method to the original method as the regularizat…
We present a data-driven approach to construct entropy-based closures for the moment system from kinetic equations. The proposed closure learns the entropy function by fitting the map between the moments and the entropy of the moment system, and thus does not depend on the space-time discretization of the moment system and specific problem configurations such as initial and boundary conditions. With convex and $C^2$ approximations, this data-driven closure inherits several structural properties from entropy-based closures, such as entropy dissipation, hyperbolicity, and H-Theorem. We construct…
We make a brief historical review to the moment model reduction to the kinetic equations, particularly the Grad's moment method for Boltzmann equation. The focus is on the hyperbolicity of the reduced model, which is essential to the existence of its classical solution as a Cauchy problem. The theory of the framework we developed in last years is then introduced, which may preserve the hyperbolic nature of the kinetic equations with high universality. Some lastest progress on the comparison between models with/without hyperbolicity is presented to validate the hyperbolic moment models for rare…
