Journal Article

SpectralPlasmaSolver: a Spectral Code for Multiscale Simulations of Collisionless, Magnetized Plasmas

Markidis, Stefano, Delzanno, Gian Luca, Peng, Ivy Bo, Roytershteyn, Vadim, Manzini, Gianmarco, Vencels, Juris

2016

Overview

We present the design and implementation of a spectral code, called SpectralPlasmaSolver (SPS), for the solution of the multi-dimensional Vlasov-Maxwell equations. The method is based on a Hermite-Fourier decomposition of the particle distribution function. The code is written in Fortran and uses the PETSc library for solving the non-linear equations and preconditioning and the FFTW library for the convolutions. SPS is parallelized for shared- memory machines using OpenMP. As a verification example, we discuss simulations of the two-dimensional Orszag-Tang vortex problem and successfully compare them against a fully kinetic Particle-In-Cell simulation. An assessment of the performance of the code is presented, showing a significant improvement in the code running-time achieved by preconditioning, while strong scaling tests show a factor of 10 speed-up using 16 threads.

• Publisher: IOP Publishing
• Subject: Application programming interfaces (API) Codes (symbols) Collisionless plasmas Convolution Distribution functions Maxwell equations Multiprocessing systems Numerical models Plasma devices Plasma flow Plasma jets Vlasov equation Design and implementations Fourier decomposition Magnetized plasmas Multi-scale simulation Particle distribution functions Particle-in-cell simulations Shared memory machines Vlasov-Maxwell equations / Distribution functions / Libraries / Mathematical analysis / Maxwell's equations / Nonlinear equations / Particle in cell technique / Physics / Plasmas (physics) / Preconditioning / Simulation / Spectra