Slurm: Fluid particle-in-cell code for plasma modeling

Abstract

With the approach of exascale computing era, particle-based models are becoming the focus of research due to their excellent scalability. We present a new code, Slurm, which implements the classic particle-in-cell algorithm for modeling magnetized fluids and plasmas. It features particle volume evolution which damps the numerical finite grid instability, and allows modeling of key physical instabilities such as Kelvin-Helmholtz and Rayleigh-Taylor. The magnetic field in Slurm is handled via the electromagnetic vector potential carried by particles. Numerical diffusion of the magnetic flux is extremely low, and the solenoidality of the magnetic field is preserved to machine precision. A double-linked list is used to carry particles, thus implementation of open boundary conditions is simple and efficient. The code is written in C++ with OpenMP multi-threading, and has no external dependencies except for Boost. It is easy to install and use on multi-core desktop computers as well as on large shared-memory machines. Slurm is an ideal tool for its primary goal, modeling of space weather events in the heliosphere. This article walks the reader through the physical model, the algorithm, and all important details of implementation. Ideally, after finishing this paper, the reader should be able to either use Slurm for solving the desired problem, or create a new fluid PIC code.

Multi-scale simulations of particle acceleration in astrophysical systems

“…Among other proprietary codes used for astrophysics applications are A-ParT , Calder (Lefebvre et al, 2003), Osiris (Fonseca et al, 2002), and Photon-Plasma (Haugbølle et al, 2013). Finally, other PIC codes rely on more advanced numerical schemes; e.g., the implicit code iPIC3D (Markidis et al, 2010) or the Slurm code for modeling magnetized fluids or plasmas (Olshevsky et al, 2019).…”

PolyPIC: The Polymorphic-Particle-in-Cell Method for Fluid-Kinetic Coupling

“…The algorithms of fluid PIC methods are discussed in detail in Bacchini et al [3], Olshevsky et al [6], and Brackbill et al [34], while kinetic PIC methods are extensively presented in two textbooks [35,36]. In essence, both fluid and kinetic PIC methods are semi-Lagrangian numerical methods.…”

“…1 Interpolation Particles → Grid. The values of the fluid quantities on the grid points (ρ m , ρ c , u, and I) are computed using the particle to grid interpolation functions (Equation 6 and Figure 1). It is important to note that both kinetic and fluid particles participate in this interpolation step.…”

“…In particular, the fluid PIC method eventually merged with the Material Point Method for simulating continuous materials [4]. FLIP MHD [5] and Slurm [6] are among the most successful fluid PIC codes for plasma simulations.…”