Introduction to computational

plasma physics
雷奕安
62755208，yalei@pku.edu.cn
 课程概况
• http://www.phy.pku.edu.cn/~fusion/forum/v
iewtopic.php?t=77
• 上机
• 成绩评定为期末大作业
 Related disciplines
• Computation fluid dynamics (CFD)
• Applied mathematics, PDE, ODE
• Computational algorithms
• Programming language, C, Fortran
• Parallel programming, OpenMP, MPI
• Plasma physics, space, fusion, …
• Unix, Linux, …
大规模数值模拟的特殊性
大规模数值
数值计算 数值模拟
模拟

物理问题及
数学问题 物理问题
数学模型

相关学科研
算法 数学模型
究人员支持

超级计算机
编程 算法编程
软硬件系统
 Contents
• What is plasma
• Basic properties of plasma
• Plasma simulation challenges
• Simulation principles
 What is plasma
• Partially ionized gas, quasi-neutral
• Widely existed
– Fire, lightning, ionosphere, polar aurora
– Stars, solar wind, interplanetary (stellar, galactic)
medium, accretion disc, nebula
– Lamps, neon signs, ozone generator, fusion energy,
electric arc, laser-material interaction
• Basic properties
– Density, degree of ionization, temperature,
conductivity, quasi-neutrality
– magnetization
 Plasma vs gas
Property Gas Plasma

Conductivity Very low, insulator Very high, conductor

Species Usually one At least two, ion, electron

Distribution Usually Maxwellian Usually non-Maxwellian

Interaction Binary, short range Collective, long range

 Basic properties
• Temperature
• Quasi-neutrality
• Thermal speed

• Plasma frequency

• Plasma period
 Debye length
U→0

λD

• System size and time

• Debye shielding
Debye lengths
 Plasma parameter

• Strong coupling

• Weak coupling
Weakly coupled plasmas
 Collision frequency

• Mean-free-path
• Collisional plasma
• (Collisionless)
• Collisioning frequency
 Magnetized plasma
• Anisotropic
• Gyroradius
• Gyrofrequency
• Magnetization parameter

• Plasma beta
 Simulation challenges
• Problem size: 1014 ~ 1024 particles
• Debye sphere size: 102 ~ 106 particles
• Time steps: 104 ~ 106
• Point particle, computational unstable,
sigularities
 Solution
• No details, essence of the plasma
• One or two dimension to reduce the size
• No high frequency phenomenon, increase
time step length
• Reduce ND, mi / me
• Smoothing particle charge, clouds
• Fluidal approaches, single or double
• Kinetic approaches, df/f
 Simple Simulation
• Electrostatic 1 dimensional simulation,
ES1
• Self and applied electrostatic field
• Applied magnetic field
• Couple with both theory and experiment,
and complementing them
Basic model
Basic model
 Basic model
• Field -> force -> motion -> field -> …
• Field: Maxwell's equations
• Force: Newton-Lorentz equations
• Discretized time and space
• Finite size particle
• Beware of nonphysical effects
Computational cycle
 Equation of motion
• vi, pi, trajectory
• Integration method, fastest and least storage
• Runge-Kutta
• Leap-frog
 Planet Problem
x0 = 1; vx0 = 0; y0 = 0; vy0 = 1
read (*,*) dt
N = 30/dt
Forward
differencing do i = 0, N+3
x1 = x0 + vx0*dt
y1 = y0 + vy0*dt
d  i 1   i
 r = sqrt(x0*x0 + y0*y0)
dt t fx = -x0/r**3
fy = -y0/r**3
dx x i 1  x i vx1 = vx0 + fx*dt
 vy1 = vy0 + fy*dt
dt t ! if(mod(i,N/10).eq.2)
write(*,*) x0, y0, -1/r+(vx0*vx0+vy0*vy0)/2
x0 = x1; y0 = y1; vx0 = vx1; vy0 = vy1
enddo
end
 Planet Problem

./a.out > data

0.1
$ gnuplot
Gnuplot> plot “data” u 1:2
 Planet Problem

./a.out > data

0.01
$ gnuplot
Gnuplot> plot “data” u 1:2
 Planet Problem
x0 = 1; vx0 = 0; y0 = 0; vy0 = 1
read (*,*) dt
N = 30/dt
Leap Frog
x1 = x0 + vx0*dt
d  i 1   i y1 = y0 + vy0*dt
 xh0 = (x0+x1)/2; yh0 = (y0+y1)/2
dt t do i = 0, N
xh1 = xh0+vx0*dt; yh1 = yh0 + vy0*dt;
dx x i 3 2  x i 1 2
 r = sqrt(xh0*xh0 + yh0 *yh0 )
dt t fx = -xh1/r**3
fy = -yh1/r**3
vx1 = vx0 + fx*dt
vy1 = vy0 + fy*dt
! if(mod(i,N/100).eq.0)
write(*,*) xh0, yh0, -1/r+(vx0*vx0+vy0*vy0)/2
xh0 = xh1; yh0 = yh1; vx0 = vx1; vy0 = vy1
enddo
end
 Planet Problem

./a.out > data

0.1
$ gnuplot
Gnuplot> plot “data” u 1:2
 Planet Problem

./a.out > data

0.01
$ gnuplot
Gnuplot> plot “data” u 1:2
 Field equations
• Poisson’s equation
 Field equations
• Poisson’s equation is solvable
• In periodic boundary conditions, fast Fourier
transform (FFT) is used, filtering the high
frequency part (smoothing), is easy to
calculate
 Particle and force weighting
• Particle positions are continuous, but fields
and charge density are not, interpolating

• Zero-order weighting

• First-order weighting, cloud-in-cell

 Higher order weighting
• Quadratic or cubic splines, rounds of
roughness, reduces noise, more
computation
 Initial values
• Number of particles and cells
• Weighting method
• Initial distribution and perturbation
• The simplest case: perturbed cold plasma,
with fixed ions.

• Warm plasma, set velocities

Initial values
 Diagnostics
• Graphical snapshots of the history
• x, v, r, f, E, etc.
• Not all ti
• For particle quantities, phase space,
velocity space, density in velocity
• For grid quantities, charge density,
potential, electrical field, electrostatic
energy distribution in k space
 Tests
• Compare with theory and experiment, with answer
known
• Change nonphysical initial values (NP, NG, t, x, …)
• Simple test problems
 Server connection
• Ssh
Host: 162.105.23.110, protocol: ssh2
• Your username & password
• Vnc connection
In ssh shell: “vncserver”, input vnc passwd,
remember xwindow number
• Tightvnc: 162.105.23.110:xx (the xwindow
number)
• Kill vncserver: “vncserver –kill :xx” (x-win no.)
 Xes1
• Xes1 document
• Xgrafix already compiled in /usr/local
• Xes1 makefile
LIBDIRS = -L/usr/local/lib -L/usr/lib -L/usr/X11R6/lib64
• make
• ./xes1 -i inp/ee.inp
 Clients
• Ssh
putty.exe
• Vncviewer
http://www.phy.pku.edu.cn/~lei/vncviewer.
exe
• Pscp:
• http://www.phy.pku.edu.cn/~lei/pscp.exe