2007 Volume 2 Pages 020
A new gyrokinetic plasma simulation model for electromagnetic phenomena is presented. In this model, the total characteristic method, where the δf particle-in-cell simulation model is complemented with the fluid model to satisfy the conservation properties, is applied to electrons. The electric field component parallel to the magnetic field is calculated from the time derivative of Ampère's law. It is demonstrated that both the real frequency and damping rate of kinetic Alfvén wave are computed correctly for various electron beta values. It is also shown that with respect to the number of marker particles, the numerical convergence of real frequency and damping rate is faster with the total characteristic method than with the conventional δf method. Specifically, it is demonstrated that the total characteristic method enables a simulation of a kinetic Alfvén wave with a grid size ten times larger than the electron skin depth, while the wave damps spuriously for the same physical condition in a conventional δf simulation.
