Three-dimensional simple conformal symplectic particle-in-cell methods for simulations of high power microwave devices

Abstract

To overcome the staircase error in the traditional particle-in-cell (PIC) method, a three dimensional (3D) simple conformal (SC) symplectic PIC method is presented in this paper. The SC symplectic finite integration technique (FIT) scheme is used to advance the electromagnetic fields without reduction of the time step. Particles are emitted from conformal boundaries with the charge conserving emission scheme and moved by using the relativistic Newton–Lorentz force equation. The symplectic formulas of auxiliary-differential equation, complex frequency shifted perfectly matched layer (ADE-CFS-PML) are given for truncating the open boundaries, numerical results show that the maximum relative error of truncation is less than 90 dB. Based on the surface equivalence theorem, the computing algorithms of conformal signals’ injection are given, numerical results show that the algorithms can give the right mode patterns and the errors of cutoff frequencies could be as low as 0.1%. To verify the conformal algorithms, a magnetically insulated line oscillator is simulated, and the results are compared to those provided by using the 2.5D UNIPIC code, which show that they agree well. The results also show that the high order symplectic integration method can suppress the numerical Cherenkov radiation.