A dual grid geometric electromagnetic particle in cell method

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Kormann, Katharina, Sonnendrücker, Eric
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Kormann, Katharina
Sonnendrücker, Eric
author_facet Kormann, Katharina
Sonnendrücker, Eric
contents Geometric particle-in-cell discretizations have been derived based on a discretization of the fields that is conforming with the de Rham structure of the Maxwell's equation and a standard particle-in-cell ansatz for the fields by deriving the equations of motion from a discrete action principle. While earlier work has focused on finite element discretization of the fields based on the theory of Finite Element Exterior Calculus, we propose in this article an alternative formulation of the field equations that is based on the ideas conveyed by mimetic finite differences. The needed duality being expressed by the use of staggered grids. We construct a finite difference formulation based on degrees of freedom defined as point values, edge, face and volume integrals on a primal and its dual grid. Compared to the finite element formulation no mass matrix inversion is involved in the formulation of the Maxwell solver. In numerical experiments, we verify the conservation properties of the novel method and study the influence of the various parameters in the discretization.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_05032
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A dual grid geometric electromagnetic particle in cell method
Kormann, Katharina
Sonnendrücker, Eric
Numerical Analysis
Plasma Physics
65M06, 65P10, 65M25, 37K05, 65Z05
Geometric particle-in-cell discretizations have been derived based on a discretization of the fields that is conforming with the de Rham structure of the Maxwell's equation and a standard particle-in-cell ansatz for the fields by deriving the equations of motion from a discrete action principle. While earlier work has focused on finite element discretization of the fields based on the theory of Finite Element Exterior Calculus, we propose in this article an alternative formulation of the field equations that is based on the ideas conveyed by mimetic finite differences. The needed duality being expressed by the use of staggered grids. We construct a finite difference formulation based on degrees of freedom defined as point values, edge, face and volume integrals on a primal and its dual grid. Compared to the finite element formulation no mass matrix inversion is involved in the formulation of the Maxwell solver. In numerical experiments, we verify the conservation properties of the novel method and study the influence of the various parameters in the discretization.
title A dual grid geometric electromagnetic particle in cell method
topic Numerical Analysis
Plasma Physics
65M06, 65P10, 65M25, 37K05, 65Z05
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.05032