Integral and Lagrangian simulations of particle and radiation transport in plasma

Abstract

Accurate integral and Lagrangian models of transport in plasmas, in which the models reflect the actual physical behaviour as closely as possible, are presented. These methods are applied to the behaviour of particles and photons in plasmas. First, to show how these types of models arise in a wide range of plasma physics applications, an application to radiation transport in a lighting discharge is given. The radiation transport is solved self-consistently with a model of the discharge to provide what are believed to be very accurate 1D simulations of fluorescent lamps. To extend these integral methods to higher dimensions is computationally very costly. The wide utility of ‘treecodes’ in solving massive integral problems in plasma physics is discussed, and illustrated in modelling vortex formation in a Penning trap, where a remarkably detailed simulation of vortex formation in the trap is obtained. Extension of treecode methods to other integral problems such as radiation transport is under consideration.