Charge conserving FE-PIC codes on general grids

Martin Campos Pinto (1, 2) , Sébastien Jund (1, 2) , Stéphanie Salmon (1, 2) , Eric Sonnendrücker (1, 2)

1 IRMA - Institut de Recherche Mathématique Avancée
2 CALVI - Scientific computation and visualization

We develop a general mathematical framework for electromagnetic Particle-In-Cell (PIC) codes that can be used on structured as well as unstructured or hybrid grids. It can accomodate high order Maxwell solvers and arbitrary smoothing functions for the particles. Moreover, it includes an exact discrete continuity equation. We show that the lowest order version of our formulation corresponds on a rectangular grid to the traditional Cloud-In-Cell (CIC) version of the PIC method coupled to a Yee Maxwell solver and the Villasenor-Buneman charge deposition scheme.

Mots clés: Maxwell-Vlasov system; conservation of charge; finite element methods; PIC codes; unstructured grids

Domaines: Analyse numérique [math.NA]

Martin Campos Pinto, Sébastien Jund, Stéphanie Salmon, Eric Sonnendrücker. Charge conserving FE-PIC codes on general grids. 2008. ⟨hal-00311429v1⟩