Streamline generation code for particle dynamics description in numerical models of turbulence

Abstract

Streamline Version 4 is a versatile Fortran 77 & C++ program for calculating charged test particle trajectories or field-lines for user-specified fields using the test-particle method. The user has the freedom to specify any type of field (analytical, tabulated in files, time dependent, etc.) and maintains complete control over initial conditions of trajectories/field-lines and boundary conditions of specified fields. The structure of Streamline was redesigned from previous versions in order to know not only particle or field-lines positions and velocities at each step of the simulations, but also the instantaneous field values as seen by particles. This was made to compute the instantaneous value of the particle’s magnetic moment, but other applications are possible too. Accuracy tests of the code are shown for different cases, i.e., particles moving in constant magnetic field, magnetic plus constant electric field and wave field. In addition in the last part of the paper we concentrate our discussion on the study of velocity space diffusion of charged particles in turbulent slab fields, paying attention to the discretization of the fields and the temporal discretization of the dynamical equations. The diffusion of charged particles is a very common topic in plasma physics and astrophysics since it plays an important role in many different phenomena such as stochastic particle acceleration, diffusive shock acceleration, solar energetic particle propagation, and the scattering required for the solar modulation of galactic cosmic rays.