Jonathan Squire — Page 5

arXiv2014

Geometric integration of the Vlasov-Maxwell system with a variational particle-in-cell scheme

A fully variational, unstructured, electromagnetic particle-in-cell integrator is developed for integration of the Vlasov-Maxwell equations. Using the formalism of Discrete Exterior Calculus, the field solver, interpolation scheme and particle advance algorithm are derived through minimization of a single discrete field theory action. As a consequence of ensuring that the action is invariant under discrete electromagnetic gauge transformations, the integrator exactly conserves Gauss's law.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2014

VEST: abstract vector calculus simplification in Mathematica

We present a new package, VEST (Vector Einstein Summation Tools), that performs abstract vector calculus computations in Mathematica. Through the use of index notation, VEST is able to reduce three-dimensional scalar and vector expressions of a very general type to a well defined standard form. In addition, utilizing properties of the Levi-Civita symbol, the program can derive types of multi-term vector identities that are not recognized by reduction, subsequently applying these to simplify large expressions. In a companion paper (Burby et al., 2013), we employ VEST in the automation of the calculation of high-order Lagrangians for the single particle guiding center system in plasma physics, a computation which illustrates its ability to handle very large expressions. VEST has been designed to be simple and intuitive to use, both for basic checking of work and more involved computations.

physics.comp-ph↗