A new hybrid code (CHIEF) implementing the inertial electron fluid equation without approximation

Abstract

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 governing equations of the model, how these are discretized and implemented numerically, as well as six test problems to validate our numerical approach. Our chosen test problems, where the electron inertia and ion kinetic effects play the essential role, are: 0) Excitation of parallel eigenmodes to check numerical convergence and stability, 1) parallel (to a background magnetic field) propagating electromagnetic waves, 2) perpendicular propagating electrostatic waves (ion Bernstein modes), 3) ion beam right-hand instability (resonant and non-resonant), 4) ion Landau damping, 5) ion firehose instability, and 6) 2D oblique ion firehose instability. Our results reproduce successfully the predictions of linear and non-linear theory for all these problems, validating our code. All properties of this hybrid code make it ideal to study multi-scale phenomena between electron and ion scales such as collisionless shocks, magnetic reconnection and kinetic plasma turbulence in the dissipation range above the electron scales.

57 pages, 19 figures. Revised to match with the version published in Computer Physics Communications

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Cited by in corpus (12)

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• A Generalized Quasi-Neutral Fluid-Particle Hybrid Plasma Model and Its Application to Energetic-Particle-Magnetohydrodynamics Hybrid Simulation
• Hamiltonian kinetic-Hall Magnetohydrodynamics with fluid and kinetic ions in the current and pressure coupling schemes
• Importance of accurate consideration of the electron inertia in hybrid-kinetic simulations of collisionless plasma turbulence: 1. The 2D limit
• Electron inertia effects in 3D hybrid-kinetic collisionless plasma turbulence
• Preferential acceleration of heavy ions in magnetic reconnection: Hybrid-kinetic simulations with electron inertia
• Proton and Helium Heating by Cascading Turbulence in a Low-beta Plasma
• Local extraction of three-dimensional magnetic reconnection X-lines
• Identification and characterization of current sheets in collisionless plasma turbulence
• Verification of a hybrid gyrokinetic model using the advanced semi-Lagrange code ssV
• Ion Weibel Instability in the hybrid framework: the optimal resolution