Asymptotic Preserving Property Research Articles

An implicit unified gas-kinetic particle method with large time steps for gray radiation transport

For a long time, efficient algorithms for high-dimensional equations, represented by photon radiation transport, have been one important topic in the development of computational methods for particle transport processes. In this paper, we present an implicit unified gas-kinetic particle (IUGKP) method for multiscale gray radiative transfer. Based on the integral solution of the radiative transfer equation, the photon transport processes are categorized into non-equilibrium transport processes with a large photon free path and equilibrium transport processes with a small photon free path. The long-path processes are solved by an implicit Monte Carlo (IMC) method, and the short-path processes are solved by an implicit diffusion system. The closure formulation of photon distribution is derived from the local integral solution of the radiative transfer equation to couple the IMC and diffusion system. The improvement of the proposed IUGKP method over UGKP method is that particles can be tracked continuously instead of just until the first collision, making simulation with large time steps possible. The IUGKP method has the properties of asymptotic-preserving (AP) and regime-adaptive (RA). The AP property states that the IUGKP method converges to the consistent numerical methods for the asymptotic limiting equations of RTE in the limiting regimes. The RA property states that the computational accuracy of the IUGKP method adapts to the regimes. In this paper, the mathematical proof of the AP and RA properties is presented, and the multiscale numerical tests are performed to demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of the IUGKP method.

Multiscale simulation of rarefied gas dynamics via direct intermittent GSIS-DSMC coupling

The general synthetic iterative scheme (GSIS) has proven its efficacy in modeling rarefied gas dynamics, where the steady-state solutions are obtained after dozens of iterations of the Boltzmann equation, with minimal numerical dissipation even using large spatial cells. In this paper, the fast convergence and asymptotic-preserving properties of the GSIS are harnessed to remove the limitations of the direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method. The GSIS, which leverages high-order constitutive relations derived from DSMC, is applied intermittently, which not only rapidly steers the DSMC towards steady state, but also eliminates the requirement that the cell size must be smaller than the molecular mean free path. Several numerical tests have been conducted to validate the accuracy and efficiency of this hybrid GSIS-DSMC approach.

Efficient parallel solver for rarefied gas flow using GSIS

Recently, the general synthetic iterative scheme (GSIS) has been proposed to find the steady-state solution of the Boltzmann equation in the whole range of gas rarefaction, where its fast-converging and asymptotic-preserving properties lead to the significant reduction of iteration numbers and spatial cells in the near-continuum flow regime. However, the efficiency and accuracy of GSIS have only been demonstrated in two-dimensional problems with small numbers of spatial cells and discrete velocities. Here, a large-scale parallel computing strategy is designed to extend the GSIS to three-dimensional flow problems, including the supersonic flows which are usually difficult to solve by the discrete velocity method. Since the GSIS involves the calculation of the mesoscopic kinetic equation which is defined in six-dimensional phase-space, and the macroscopic high-temperature Navier–Stokes–Fourier equations in three-dimensional physical space, the proper partition of the spatial and velocity spaces, and the allocation of CPU cores to the mesoscopic and macroscopic solvers, are the keys to improving the overall computational efficiency. These factors are systematically tested to achieve optimal performance, up to 100 billion spatial and velocity grids. For hypersonic flows around the Apollo reentry capsule, the X38-like vehicle, and the space station, our parallel solver can obtain the converged solution within one hour.

Asymptotic preserving semi-Lagrangian discontinuous Galerkin methods for multiscale kinetic transport equations

We propose a new family of asymptotic preserving (AP) discontinuous Galerkin (DG) schemes for kinetic transport equations under a diffusive scaling. They are built upon a characteristics-based model reformulation proposed in Zhang et al. (2023) [27]. The reformulated model comprises a convection-diffusion-like equation for the macroscopic density and another evolution equation for the distribution function. We employ the equations in a weak form to enjoy the advantages of a DG method. We also leverage a semi-Lagrangian (SL) approach to achieve higher efficiency than a fully implicit scheme without loss of unconditional stability. A damping technique is introduced to control spurious numerical oscillations for high-order DG methods. We establish formal AP and Fourier stability analyses for fully discrete schemes in a linear scenario. Numerical experiments, covering one-dimensional to three-dimensional in space problems, confirm the accuracy, AP property, uniformly unconditional stability, and high parallel efficiency of the proposed methods.

High order asymptotic preserving scheme for diffusive scaled linear kinetic equations with general initial conditions

Diffusive scaled linear kinetic equations appear in various applications, and they contain a small parameter ɛ that forces a severe time step restriction for standard explicit schemes. Asymptotic preserving (AP) schemes are those schemes that attain asymptotic consistency and uniform stability for all values of ɛ, with the time step restriction being independent of ɛ. In this work, we develop high order AP scheme for such diffusive scaled kinetic equations with both well-prepared and non-well-prepared initial conditions by employing IMEX-RK time integrators such as CK-ARS and A types. This framework is also extended to a different collision model involving advection-diffusion asymptotics, and the AP property is proved formally. A further extension of our framework to inflow boundaries has been made, and the AP property is verified. The temporal and spatial orders of accuracy of our framework are numerically validated in different regimes of ɛ, for all the models. The qualitative results for diffusion asymptotics, and equilibrium and non-equilibrium inflow boundaries are also presented.

An asymptotic preserving and energy stable scheme for the Euler-Poisson system in the quasineutral limit

An asymptotic preserving (AP) and energy stable scheme for the Euler-Poisson (EP) system under the quasineutral scaling is designed and analysed. Appropriate stabilisation terms are introduced in the convective fluxes of mass and momenta, and the gradient of the electrostatic potential which lead to the dissipation of mechanical energy and consequently the entropy stability of solutions. The time discretisation is semi-implicit in nature, whereas the space discretisation uses a finite volume framework on a marker and cell (MAC) grid. The numerical resolution of the fully-discrete scheme involves two steps: the solution of a linear elliptic problem for the potential and an explicit evaluation for the density and velocity. The proposed scheme possesses several physically relevant attributes, such as the positivity of density, entropy stability and the consistency with the weak formulation of the continuous EP system. The AP property of the scheme, i.e. the boundedness of the mesh parameters with respect to Debye length and its consistency with the quasineutral limit system, is demonstrated. The results of numerical case studies are presented to substantiate the robustness and efficiency of the proposed method.

A structure and asymptotic preserving scheme for the Vlasov-Poisson-Fokker-Planck model

We propose a numerical method for the Vlasov-Poisson-Fokker-Planck model written as an hyperbolic system thanks to a spectral decomposition in the basis of Hermite functions with respect to the velocity variable and a structure preserving finite volume scheme for the space variable. On the one hand, we show that this scheme naturally preserves both stationary solutions and linearized free-energy estimate. On the other hand, we adapt previous arguments based on hypocoercivity methods to get quantitative estimates ensuring the exponential relaxation to equilibrium of the discrete solution for the linearized Vlasov-Poisson-Fokker-Planck system, uniformly with respect to both scaling and discretization parameters. Finally, we perform substantial numerical simulations for the nonlinear system to illustrate the efficiency of this approach for a large variety of collisional regimes (plasma echos for weakly collisional regimes and trend to equilibrium for collisional plasmas) and to highlight its robustness (unconditional stability, asymptotic preserving properties).

A Strang-splitting based unified gas-kinetic scheme for two species plasma in spherical coordinate

Plasma disturbed by an absorbing spherical body is important in the electric probe theory, this process can be simulated by a two species plasma model, which includes ions and electrons. To simulate it efficiently in all regimes, a novel Strang-splitting based unified gas-kinetic scheme for this model in spherical coordinate is proposed. The novel Strang-splitting strategy allows a larger time step for ions’ simulation while a second-order temporal accuracy is maintained. The asymptotic-preserving property is proved. The numerical experiments verify the temporal accuracy and give a reasonable kinetic result for the charging process of absorbing spherical body in plasma in rarefied and dense regimes.

An Asymptotic-Preserving Hybrid Angular Discretization for the Gray Radiative Transfer Equations

The aim of this paper is to construct a new numerical scheme for the nonlinear gray radiative transfer (GRT) equations, namely, the asymptotic-preserving (AP) H N T -based unified gas kinetic scheme (UGKS). The constructed scheme is obtained by combing the UGKS for spatial discretization with the hybrid H N T method for angular discretization. Since the H N T is a hybrid angular discrete method of both P N and S N methods, the current H N T -based UGKS can not only mitigate the ray effects of the S N method largely, but also suppress the oscillations of the original P N method. Furthermore, we show that the current H N T -based UGKS also inherits the AP property of UGKS. A number of one-dimensional and two-dimensional numerical experiments are presented that validate the performance of the current scheme in both optically thin and thick regimes, as well as in mitigating the ray effects. Moreover, it can capture the initial layer solution without requiring additional treatments.

High order asymptotic preserving finite difference WENO schemes with constrained transport for MHD equations in all sonic Mach numbers

In this paper, a high-order semi-implicit (SI) asymptotic preserving (AP) and divergence-free finite difference weighted essentially nonoscillatory (WENO) scheme is proposed for magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) equations. We consider the sonic Mach number ε ranging from 0 to O(1). High-order accuracy in time is obtained by SI implicit-explicit Runge–Kutta (IMEX-RK) time discretization. High-order accuracy in space is achieved by finite difference WENO schemes with characteristic-wise reconstructions. A constrained transport method is applied to maintain a discrete divergence-free condition. We formally prove that the scheme is AP. Asymptotic accuracy (AA) in the incompressible MHD limit is obtained if the implicit part of the SI IMEX-RK scheme is stiffly accurate. Numerical experiments are provided to validate the AP, AA, and divergence-free properties of our proposed approach. Besides, the scheme can well capture discontinuities such as shocks in an essentially non-oscillatory fashion in the compressible regime, while it is also a good incompressible solver with uniform large-time step conditions in the low sonic Mach limit.

Positivity-Preserving Lax–Wendroff Discontinuous Galerkin Schemes for Quadrature-Based Moment-Closure Approximations of Kinetic Models

The quadrature-based method of moments (QMOM) offers a promising class of approximation techniques for reducing kinetic equations to fluid equations that are valid beyond thermodynamic equilibrium. In this work, we study a particular five-moment variant of QMOM known as HyQMOM and establish that this system is moment-invertible over a convex region in solution space. We then develop a high-order discontinuous Galerkin (DG) scheme for solving the resulting fluid system. The scheme is based on a predictor–corrector approach, where the prediction is a localized space-time DG scheme. The nonlinear algebraic system in this prediction is solved using a Picard iteration. The correction is a straightforward explicit update based on the time-integral of the evolution equation, where the space-time prediction replaces all instances of the exact solution. In the absence of limiters, the high-order scheme does not guarantee that solutions remain in the convex set over which HyQMOM is moment-realizable. To overcome this, we introduce novel limiters that rigorously guarantee that the computed solution does not leave the convex set of realizable solutions, thus guaranteeing the hyperbolicity of the system. We develop positivity-preserving limiters in both the prediction and correction steps and an oscillation limiter that damps unphysical oscillations near shocks. We also develop a novel extension of this scheme to include a BGK collision operator; the proposed method is shown to be asymptotic-preserving in the high-collision limit. The HyQMOM and the HyQMOM-BGK solvers are verified on several test cases, demonstrating high-order accuracy on smooth problems and shock-capturing capability on problems with shocks. The asymptotic-preserving property of the HyQMOM-BGK solver is also numerically verified.

Accuracy and Stability Analysis of the Semi-Lagrangian Method for Stiff Hyperbolic Relaxation Systems and Kinetic BGK Model

In this paper, we develop a family of third order asymptotic-preserving (AP) and asymptotically accurate (AA) diagonally implicit Runge–Kutta (DIRK) time discretization methods for the stiff hyperbolic relaxation systems and kinetic Bhatnagar–Gross–Krook (BGK) model in the semi-Lagrangian (SL) setting. The methods are constructed based on an accuracy analysis of the SL scheme for stiff hyperbolic relaxation systems and kinetic BGK model in the limiting fluid regime when the Knudsen number approaches 0. An extra order condition for the asymptotic third order accuracy in the limiting regime is derived. Linear von Neumann stability analysis of the proposed third order DIRK methods are performed to a simplified two-velocity linear kinetic model. Extensive numerical tests are presented to demonstrate the AA, AP, and stability properties of our proposed schemes.

Stochastic Galerkin particle methods for kinetic equations of plasmas with uncertainties

The study of uncertainty propagation is of fundamental importance in plasma physics simulations. To this end, in the present work we propose a novel stochastic Galerkin (sG) particle method for collisional kinetic models of plasmas under the effect of uncertainties. This class of methods is based on a generalized polynomial chaos (gPC) expansion of the particles' position and velocity. In details, we introduce a stochastic particle approximation for the Vlasov-Poisson system with a BGK term describing plasma collisions. A careful reformulation of such dynamics is needed to perform the sG projection and to obtain the corresponding system for the gPC coefficients. We show that the sG particle method preserves the main physical properties of the problem, such as conservations and positivity of the solution, while achieving spectral accuracy for smooth solutions in the random space. Furthermore, in the fluid limit the sG particle solver is designed to possess the asymptotic-preserving property necessary to obtain a sG particle scheme for the limiting Euler-Poisson system, thus avoiding the loss of hyperbolicity typical of conventional sG methods based on finite differences or finite volumes. We tested the schemes considering the classical Landau damping problem in the presence of both small and large initial uncertain perturbations, the two stream instability and the Sod shock tube problems under uncertainties. The results show that the proposed method is able to capture the correct behavior of the system in all test cases, even when the relaxation time scale is very small.

A gas kinetic Lax–Wendroff scheme for low-speed isothermal rarefied gas flows

Previously, a gas kinetic Bhatnagar–Gross–Krook (BGK) scheme was proposed by us for incompressible flows in the continuum limits. [W. Li and W. Li, “A gas-kinetic BGK scheme for the finite volume lattice Boltzmann method for nearly incompressible flows,” Comput. Fluids 162, 126–138 (2018).] In the present work, we extend the gas kinetic BGK scheme to simulate low-speed isothermal rarefied nonequilibrium gas flows. This scheme is a gas kinetic Lax–Wendroff scheme (GKLWS) for the discrete velocity Boltzmann equation in the finite volume discretization framework with second-order accuracy in both time and space. As collision and transport of the molecular particles are coupled in the present GKLWS, the time step of the present method is not limited by the relaxation time, for which the present scheme is efficient for multiscale gas flows. Moreover, the present GKLWS holds the asymptotic preserving (AP) property, which ensures that both the Navier–Stokes solutions in the continuum limits and free-molecular flow solutions in the rarefied limits can be reliably obtained. To validate the accuracy and AP property of the GKLWS, several numerical benchmarks of isothermal low-speed rarefied gas flows are simulated by the present scheme. The numerical results show that the present scheme can be a reliable multiscale method for all Knudsen number low-speed isothermal gas flows.

High order semi-implicit schemes for viscous compressible flows in 3D

In this article we present a high order cell-centered numerical scheme in space and time for the solution of the compressible Navier-Stokes equations. To deal with multiscale phenomena induced by the different speeds of acoustic and material waves, we propose a semi-implicit time discretization which allows the CFL-stability condition to be independent of the fast sound speed, hence improving the efficiency of the solver. This is particularly well suited for applications in the low Mach regime with a rather small fluid velocity, where the governing equations tend to the incompressible model. The momentum equation is inserted into the energy equation yielding an elliptic equation on the pressure. The class of implicit-explicit (IMEX) time integrators is then used to ensure asymptotic preserving properties of the numerical method and to improve time accuracy. High order in space is achieved relying on implicit finite difference and explicit CWENO reconstruction operators, that ultimately lead to a fully quadrature-free scheme. To relax the severe parabolic restriction on the maximum admissible time step related to viscous contributions, a novel implicit discretization of the diffusive terms is designed. A variational approach based on the discontinuous Galerkin (DG) spatial discretization is devised in order to obtain a discrete cell-centered Laplace operator. High order corner gradients of the velocity field are employed in 3D to derive the Laplace discretization, and the resulting viscous system is proven to be symmetric and positive definite. As such, it can be conveniently solved at the aid of the conjugate gradient method. Numerical results confirm the accuracy and the robustness of the novel schemes in the challenging stiff limit of the governing equations characterized by low Mach numbers.

High order well-balanced asymptotic preserving finite difference WENO schemes for the shallow water equations in all Froude numbers

In this paper, high order semi-implicit well-balanced and asymptotic preserving finite difference WENO schemes are proposed for the shallow water equations with a non-flat bottom topography. We consider the Froude number ranging from O(1) to 0, which in the zero Froude limit becomes the “lake equations” for balanced flow without gravity waves. We apply a well-balanced finite difference WENO reconstruction, coupled with a stiffly accurate implicit-explicit (IMEX) Runge-Kutta time discretization. The resulting semi-implicit scheme can be shown to be well-balanced, asymptotic preserving (AP) and asymptotically accurate (AA) at the same time. Both one- and two-dimensional numerical results are provided to demonstrate the high order accuracy, AP property and good performance of the proposed methods in capturing small perturbations of steady state solutions.

On the Construction of Conservative Semi-Lagrangian IMEX Advection Schemes for Multiscale Time Dependent PDEs

This article is devoted to the construction of a new class of semi-Lagrangian (SL) schemes with implicit-explicit (IMEX) Runge-Kutta (RK) time stepping for PDEs involving multiple space-time scales. The semi-Lagrangian (SL) approach fully couples the space and time discretization, thus making the use of RK strategies particularly difficult to be combined with. First, a simple scalar advection-diffusion equation is considered as a prototype PDE for the development of a high order formulation of the semi-Lagrangian IMEX algorithms. The advection part of the PDE is discretized explicitly at the aid of a SL technique, while an implicit discretization is employed for the diffusion terms. In this way, an unconditionally stable numerical scheme is obtained, that does not suffer any CFL-type stability restriction on the maximum admissible time step. Second, the SL-IMEX approach is extended to deal with hyperbolic systems with multiple scales, including balance laws, that involve shock waves and other discontinuities. A conservative scheme is then crucial to properly capture the wave propagation speed and thus to locate the discontinuity and the plateau exhibited by the solution. A novel SL technique is proposed, which is based on the integration of the governing equations over the space-time control volume which arises from the motion of each grid point. High order of accuracy is ensured by the usage of IMEX RK schemes combined with a Cauchy–Kowalevskaya procedure that provides a predictor solution within each space-time element. The one-dimensional shallow water equations (SWE) are chosen to validate the new conservative SL-IMEX schemes, where convection and pressure fluxes are treated explicitly and implicitly, respectively. The asymptotic-preserving (AP) property of the novel schemes is also studied considering a relaxation PDE system for the SWE. A large suite of convergence studies for both the non-conservative and the conservative version of the novel class of methods demonstrates that the formal order of accuracy is achieved and numerical evidences about the conservation property are shown. The AP property for the corresponding relaxation system is also investigated.

High Order Strong Stability Preserving MultiDerivative Implicit and IMEX Runge--Kutta Methods with Asymptotic Preserving Properties

In this work we present a class of high order unconditionally strong stability preserving (SSP) implicit two-derivative Runge--Kutta schemes and SSP implicit-explicit (IMEX) multi-derivative Runge--Kutta schemes where the time-step restriction is independent of the stiff term. The unconditional SSP property for a method of order $p>2$ is unique among SSP methods and depends on a backward-in-time assumption on the derivative of the operator. We show that this backward derivative condition is satisfied in many relevant cases where SSP IMEX schemes are desired. We devise unconditionally SSP implicit Runge--Kutta schemes of order up to $p=4$ and IMEX Runge--Kutta schemes of order up to $p=3$. For the multiderivative IMEX schemes, we also derive and present the order conditions, which have not appeared previously. The unconditional SSP condition ensures that these methods are positivity preserving, and we present sufficient conditions under which such methods are also asymptotic preserving when applied to a range of problems, including a hyperbolic relaxation system, the Broadwell model, and the Bhatnagar--Gross--Krook kinetic equation. We present numerical results to support the theoretical results on a variety of problems.

Analysis of an asymptotic preserving low mach number accurate IMEX-RK scheme for the wave equation system

In this paper the analysis of an asymptotic preserving (AP) IMEX-RK finite volume scheme for the wave equation system in the zero Mach number limit is presented. An IMEX-RK methodology is employed to obtain a time semi-discrete scheme, and a space-time fully-discrete scheme is derived by using standard finite volume techniques. The existence of a unique numerical solution, its uniform stability with respect to the Mach number, and the accuracy at low Mach numbers are established for both time semi-discrete and space-time fully-discrete schemes. The AP property of the scheme is proved for a general class of IMEX schemes which need not be globally stiffly accurate. Extensive numerical case studies confirm uniform second order convergence of the scheme with respect to the Mach number and all the above-mentioned properties.

A positive and asymptotic preserving filtered PN method for the gray radiative transfer equations

This paper presents a positive and asymptotic preserving scheme for the nonlinear gray radiative transfer equations. The scheme is constructed by combining the filtered spherical harmonics (FPN) method for the discretization of angular variable and with the framework of the unified gas kinetic scheme (UGKS) for the spatial- and time-discretization. The constructed scheme is almost free of ray effects and can also mitigate oscillations in the spherical harmonics (PN) approximation. Moreover, it can be shown that the current scheme is asymptotic preserving. Consequently, in the optically thick regimes the current scheme can exactly capture the solution of the diffusion limit equation without requiring the cell size being smaller than the photon's mean free path, while the solution in optically thin regimes can also be well resolved in a natural way. In addition, the FPN angular discretization induces a natural macro-micro decomposition, with this help we can obtain the sufficient conditions that guarantee the positivity of the radiative energy density and material temperature. Then, a linear scaling limiter is given to enforce that sufficient conditions. With the process of such construction, we finally obtain a scheme, called the PPFPN-based UGKS scheme, that is positive and asymptotic preserving. Various numerical experiments are included to validate the robustness, positive- and asymptotic-preserving property as well as the property of almost ray effect free.