Simulation of High-Power Microwave Air Breakdown Modeled by a Coupled Maxwell–Euler System With a Non-Maxwellian EEDF

Abstract

In this paper, a discontinuous Galerkin time-domain (DGTD) method is developed to simulate high-power microwave air breakdown phenomena, which is modeled by a coupled electromagnetic–plasma system. In the coupled system, the electromagnetic fields are governed by Maxwell’s equations and the plasma is modeled by the five-moment fluid equations (Euler’s equations). The non-Maxwellian electron energy distribution function is used to calculate electron transport coefficients and describe the nonequilibrium collision reactions between electrons and neutral air particles. The coupled Maxwell–Euler equations are solved by the DGTD method with high-order spatial and temporal discretization, which are able to provide a sufficient resolution for the physical quantities in both space and time. Several numerical examples are presented to investigate the physical process and demonstrate the capability of the numerical method.