Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: An efficient Particle-in-Cell numerical approach to perform full-dimensional kinetic simulations of low temperature plasmas is presented. Taking advantage of the cylindrical geometry of most plasma sources, a Fourier mode decomposition of the fields is carried out in the azimuthal ($θ$) direction up to a chosen maximum number of modes $N_m$. Macroparticles are pushed in all $D$ dimensions and weighed, for each mode $m$, onto a $(D-1)$ dimensional grid. The computation of the electric field for each mode is independent and reduces to solving $(N_m+1)$ $(D-1)$ dimensional Poisson problems. The approach brings spectral accuracy in the azimuthal direction, while the computational cost is comparable to that of a simulation with $(D-1)$ dimensions. We verify this approach against a planar test case based on a Penning discharge, widely used for benchmarking and validation purposes in the low-temperature plasma community. Our approach allows us to reduce the 2D problem into a collection of coupled 1D problems and to naturally perform spectral analysis of the different azimuthal modes, recovering the contribution of each mode to radial transport, with a computational time saving of one order of magnitude with respect to state of the art 2D particle-in-cell codes.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Authors: Ripoli, Matteo, Ahedo, Eduardo, Merino, Mario
Institution: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
Language: English
Subfield: Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7213939347