High-Order Structure-Preserving SBP Finite Difference Methods for the Vlasov-Maxwell System on Matrix-Free GPUs

Abstract

In this paper, we present a high-order, stable summation-by-parts (SBP) finite difference method for solving the Vlasov-Maxwell system in a 2D2V phase space. Central SBP operators for the advection terms are not stable when the solution becomes non-smooth and fine-scale filamentary structures develop, as is typical in high-dimensional Vlasov-Maxwell simulations. To address this issue, the method is stabilized using high-order upwind SBP operators. High-order explicit Runge-Kutta methods are employed for time integration. We prove that the fully discrete scheme exactly conserves mass and preserves momentum up to truncation error. Furthermore, we present a matrix-free implementation of the method on modern GPU architectures. A range of challenging benchmark problems is solved to demonstrate the accuracy, robustness, and performance of the proposed scheme.