A Parallel PIC-DSMC Code for Modeling Complex Plasmas

Many important aspects of Departmant of Defense (DoD) research involve systems where plasmas interact in a complex way with neutral gas, intense lasers, or other plasma species. Two reasons such complex plasma systems are difficult to simulate: (i) the orders of magnitude difference in, for examle, the plasma Debye length and the neutral mean free path or the size of the laser target, and (ii) the important role of collisions, which are lost in a traditional particle-in-cell (PIC) plasma simulation. Parallel computing techniques help address the first issue, and advanced algorithms like direct-simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) help address the second. DoD researchers therefore need a code that fully implements both parallel computing and DSMC-PIC, but is also easy to use. Currently no such code is available. In Phase I, this work demonstrated the capability of the VORPAL code to become a parallel plasma simulation code with the ability to model complex plasmas, including neutral species and collisions. The Phase II part of this work will complete the implementation of the Phase I DSMC algorithms, introduce advanced techniques like implicit electromagnetic algorithms and sub-cycling algorithms to help bridge spatial and temporal scales, develop a more user-friendly interface by creating bindings to Java and graphical tools for creating input files and analyzing output files.