arXiv subjects

Martin Campos Pinto

Publications and source records attributed to Martin Campos Pinto.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Harmonic potentials in the de Rham complex

Representing vector fields by potentials can be a challenging task in domains with cavities or tunnels, due to the presence of harmonic fields which are both irrotational and solenoidal but may have no scalar or vector potentials. For harmonic fields normal to the boundary, which exist in domains with cavities, the standard approach is to construct scalar potentials by solving Laplace's equation with Dirichlet boundary conditions fitted to the closed surfaces surrounding the domain's cavities. For harmonic fields tangent to the boundary, which exist in domains with tunnels, a similar method was lacking. In this article we present a construction of vector potentials obtained from curl-curl problems with inhomogeneous boundary conditions fitted to closed curves looping around the tunnels. Just as the cavity surfaces represent a basis for the 2-chain homology group, the tunnel curves represent a basis for the 1-chain homology group and the corresponding vector potentials yield a basis for the tangent harmonic fields. In our analysis the linear independence of the harmonic fields is guaranteed by their fluxes through a collection of reciprocal surfaces. These surfaces, whose boundaries lie on the boundary of the domain and which are in intersection duality with the tunnel curves, represent a basis for the relative 2-chain homology group modulo the boundary: their existence in general domains follows from the Poincare-Lefschetz duality. Applied to structure-preserving finite elements with commuting projections and standard compatibility properties on the boundaries, our approach provides an exact geometric parametrization of the discrete harmonic fields in terms of (strong) discrete potentials. An interesting by-product is a direct proof that the resulting discrete harmonic spaces have the correct dimensions, which does not rely on uniform stability properties for the commuting projections.

math.NA↗

arXiv2026

Broken-FEEC on multipatch domains with local refinements

This article introduces a novel approach for broken-FEEC (Finite Element Exterior Calculus), extending its application to locally refined spline spaces with non-matching interfaces. Traditional broken-FEEC allows for discontinuous discretizations at patch interfaces, preserving the de Rham structure and offering computational benefits. However, local refinements often lead to numerical artifacts. Our solution involves developing moment-preserving discrete conforming projection operators. These operators are explicit, localized, and metric-independent, ensuring $H^1$ and $H(\text{curl})$ continuity across non-matching interfaces while preserving high-order polynomial moments. This results in broken-FEEC de Rham sequences with accurate strong and weak derivatives, leading to energy-preserving Maxwell solvers that are explicit and virtually free of spurious modes. Numerical simulations confirm the efficacy of our method in eliminating spurious waves.

math.NA↗

arXiv2026

Non-linear control variate in δf particle-in-cell methods using symplectic neural networks

We present a novel δf particle-in-cell (PIC) method for the kinetic simulation of electrostatic plasmas in which the bulk density, acting as a control variate, is evolved using symplectic neural networks (SympNets). The SympNets are used as an approximation of the backward flow and trained using the particle trajectories. We introduce a periodic variant of the SympNet architecture that encodes the spatial periodicity of the problem into the network itself. We validate the approach with numerical results in 1D1V and 3D3V for the Vlasov-Poisson system.

physics.comp-ph↗

arXiv2026

Smooth Polar B-Splines with High-Order Regularity at the Origin

We introduce a smooth B-spline discretization in polar coordinates on the unit disc that corrects the loss of regularity present at the origin caused by the coordinate singularity in standard tensor-product B-spline formulations. The method constructs "smooth polar splines" via a Galerkin projection of harmonic polar functions $S_l^{-m}(r,θ) := r^l \sin(mθ)$ and $S_l^{m}(r,θ) := r^l \cos(mθ)$, derived from the polar representation of Cartesian monomials, onto the central tensor-product B-spline basis in the innermost radial region. The radial component reproduces $r^l$ exactly for $0 \le l \leq p$, where $p$ is the B-spline degree, satisfying the near-origin regularity condition. However, exact compatibility with $C^\infty$-regularity at the origin is recovered only in the limit $Δθ\to 0$, when the angular component resolves all angular harmonics accurately. The smooth polar splines are linear combinations of standard tensor-product B-splines and lie in the same function space, enabling mapping between the $C^\infty$-regular subspace and the original discretization space via an exact prolongation operator and a corresponding restriction operator acting on the discrete variables. They match standard tensor-product B-splines away from the origin, preserve orthogonality among the newly constructed origin-centered basis functions, and maintain local support and sparse matrices. This smoothness and locality improve the conditioning of mass and stiffness matrices, conserve charge, and reduce statistical errors in particle-in-cell simulations near the origin, while eliminating spurious eigenvalues in eigenvalue problems. The approach provides a robust, high-order, and efficient adaptation of tensor-product B-splines for polar coordinates in physics simulations.

physics.comp-ph↗

arXiv2025

The Linearized Vlasov-Maxwell System as a Hamiltonian System

We present a Hamiltonian formulation for the linearized Vlasov-Maxwell system with a Maxwellian background distribution function. We discuss the geometric properties of the model at the continuous level, and how to discretize the model in the GEMPIC framework [1]. This method allows us to preserve the structure of the system at the semi-discrete level. To integrate the model in time, we employ a Poisson splitting and discuss how to integrate each subsystem separately. We test the model against the direct delta-f method, which is the non-geometric pendant of our model. The first test case is the weak Landau damping, where our model exhibits the same physical properties for short simulations, but enjoys better long-time stability and energy conservation due to its geometric construction. These advantages becomes even more pronounced for the simulation of Bernstein waves, our second test case, where the noise in the direct delta-f method washes out all features of the dispersion relation whereas our model is able to reproduce the full spectrum correctly. The model is implemented in the open-source Python library STRUPHY [2], [3].

math.NA↗

arXiv2025

A broken-FEEC framework for structure-preserving discretizations of polar domains with tensor-product splines

We propose a novel projection-based approach to derive structure-preserving Finite Element Exterior Calculus (FEEC) discretizations using standard tensor-product splines on domains with a polar singularity. This approach follows the main lines of broken-FEEC schemes which define stable and structure-preserving operators in non-conforming discretizations of the de Rham sequence. Here, we devise a polar broken-FEEC framework that enables the use of standard tensor-product spline spaces while ensuring stability and smoothness for the solutions, as well as the preservation of the de Rham structure: A benefit of this approach is the ability to reuse codes that implement standard splines on smooth parametric domains, and efficient solvers such as Kronecker-product spline interpolation. Our construction is based on two pillars: the first one is an explicit characterization of smooth polar spline spaces within the tensor-product splines ones, which are either discontinuous or non square-integrable as a result of the singular polar pushforward operators. The second pillar consists of local, explicit and matrix-free conforming projection operators that map general tensor-product splines onto smooth polar splines, and that commute with the differential operators of the de Rham sequence.

math.NA↗

arXiv2025

Time-splitting methods for the cold-plasma model using Finite Element Exterior Calculus

In this work we propose a high-order structure-preserving discretization of the cold plasma model which describes the propagation of electromagnetic waves in magnetized plasmas. By utilizing B-Splines Finite Elements Exterior Calculus, we derive a space discretization that preserves the underlying Hamiltonian structure of the model, and we study two stable time-splitting geometrical integrators. We approximate an incoming wave boundary condition in such a way that the resulting schemes are compatible with a time-harmonic / transient decomposition of the solution, which allows us to establish their long-time stability. This approach readily applies to curvilinear and complex domains. We perform a numerical study of these schemes which compares their cost and accuracy against a standard Crank-Nicolson time integrator, and we run realistic simulations where the long-term behaviour is assessed using frequency-domain solutions. Our solvers are implemented in the Python library Psydac which makes them memory-efficient, parallel and essentially three-dimensional.

math.NA↗

arXiv2024

Splitting scheme for gyro-kinetic equations with Semi-Lagrangian and Arakawa substeps

The gyro-kinetic model is an approximation of the Vlasov-Maxwell system in a strongly magnetized magnetic field. We propose a new algorithm for solving it combining the Semi-Lagrangian (SL) method and the Arakawa (AKW) scheme with a time-integrator. Both methods are successfully used in practice for different kinds of applications, in our case, we combine them by first decomposing the problem into a fast (parallel) and a slow (perpendicular) dynamical system. The SL approach and the AKW scheme will be used to solve respectively the fast and the slow subsystems. Compared to the scheme in [1], where the entire model is solved using only the SL method, our goal is to replace the method used in the slow subsystem by the AKW scheme, in order to improve the conservation of the physical constants.

math.NA↗

arXiv2023

Mass, momentum and energy preserving FEEC and broken-FEEC schemes for the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations

In this article we propose two finite element schemes for the Navier-Stokes equations, based on a reformulation that involves differential operators from the de Rham sequence and an advection operator with explicit skew-symmetry in weak form. Our first scheme is obtained by discretizing this formulation with conforming FEEC (Finite Element Exterior Calculus) spaces: it preserves the pointwise divergence free constraint of the velocity, its total momentum and its energy, in addition to being pressure robust. Following the broken-FEEC approach, our second scheme uses fully discontinuous spaces and local conforming projections to define the discrete differential operators. It preserves the same invariants up to a dissipation of energy to stabilize numerical discontinuities. For both schemes we use a middle point time discretization which preserve these invariants at the fully discrete level and we analyse its well-posedness in terms of a CFL condition. Numerical test cases performed with spline finite elements allow us to verify the high order accuracy of the resulting numerical methods, as well as their ability to handle general boundary conditions.

math.NA↗

arXiv2023

Bounded commuting projections for multipatch spaces with non-matching interfaces

We present commuting projection operators on de Rham sequences of two-dimensional multipatch spaces with local tensor-product parametrization and non-matching interfaces. Our construction yields projection operators which are local and stable in any $L^p$ norm with $p \in [1,\infty]$: it applies to shape-regular spline patches with different mappings and local refinements, under the assumption that neighboring patches have nested resolutions and that interior vertices are shared by exactly four patches. It also applies to de Rham sequences with homogeneous boundary conditions. Following a broken-FEEC approach, we first consider tensor-product commuting projections on the single-patch de Rham sequences, and modify the resulting patch-wise operators so as to enforce their conformity and commutation with the global derivatives, while preserving their projection and stability properties with constants independent of both the diameter and inner resolution of the patches.

math.NA↗

arXiv2023

Geometric Particle-In-Cell discretizations of a plasma hybrid model with kinetic ions and mass-less fluid electrons

We explore the possibilities of applying structure-preserving numerical methods to a plasma hybrid model with kinetic ions and mass-less fluid electrons satisfying the quasi-neutrality relation. The numerical schemes are derived by finite element methods in the framework of finite element exterior calculus (FEEC) for field variables, particle-in-cell (PIC) methods for the Vlasov equation, and splitting methods in time based on an anti-symmetric bracket proposed. Conservation properties of energy, quasi-neutrality relation, positivity of density, and divergence-free property of the magnetic field are given irrespective of the used resolution and metric. Local quasi-interpolation is used for dealing with the current terms in order to make the proposed methods more efficient. The implementation has been done in the framework of the Python package STRUPHY [1], and has been verified by extensive numerical experiments.

math.NA↗

arXiv2023

Verification of the Fourier-enhanced 3D finite element Poisson solver of the gyrokinetic full-f code PICLS

We introduce and derive the Fourier-enhanced 3D electrostatic field solver of the gyrokinetic full-f PIC code PICLS. The solver makes use of a Fourier representation in one periodic direction of the domain to make the solving of the system easily parallelizable and thus save run time. The presented solver is then verified using two different approaches of manufactured solutions. The test setup used for this effort is a pinch geometry with ITG-like electric potential, containing one non-periodic and two periodic directions, one of which will be discrete Fourier transformed. The results of these tests show that in all three dimensions the L2-error decreases with a constant rate close to the ideal prediction, depending on the degree of the chosen basis functions.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2023

A $δf$ PIC method with Forward-Backward Lagrangian reconstructions

In this work we describe a $δf$ particle simulation method where the bulk density is periodically remapped on a coarse spline grid using a Forward-Backward Lagrangian (FBL) approach. This method is designed to handle plasma regimes where the densities strongly deviate from their initial state and may evolve into general profiles. We describe the method in the case of an electrostatic particle-in-cell scheme and validate its qualitative properties using a classical two-stream instability subject to a uniform oscillating drive.

physics.comp-ph↗

arXiv2022

A broken FEEC framework for electromagnetic problems on mapped multipatch domains

We present a framework for the structure-preserving approximation of partial differential equations on mapped multipatch domains, extending the classical theory of finite element exterior calculus (FEEC) to discrete de Rham sequences which are broken, i.e., fully discontinuous across the patch interfaces. Following the Conforming/Nonconforming Galerkin (CONGA) schemes developed in [http://dx.doi.org/10.1090/mcom/3079, arXiv:2109.02553, our approach is based on: (i) the identification of a conforming discrete de Rham sequence with stable commuting projection operators, (ii) the relaxation of the continuity constraints between patches, and (iii) the construction of conforming projections mapping back to the conforming subspaces, allowing to define discrete differentials on the broken sequence. This framework combines the advantages of conforming FEEC discretizations (e.g. commuting projections, discrete duality and Hodge-Helmholtz decompositions) with the data locality and implementation simplicity of interior penalty methods for discontinuous Galerkin discretizations. We apply it to several initial- and boundary-value problems, as well as eigenvalue problems arising in electromagnetics. In each case our formulations are shown to be well posed thanks to an appropriate stabilization of the jumps across the interfaces, and the solutions are extremely robust with respect to the stabilization parameter. Finally we describe a construction using tensor-product splines on mapped cartesian patches, and we detail the associated matrix operators. Our numerical experiments confirm the accuracy and stability of this discrete framework, and they allow us to verify that expected structure-preserving properties such as divergence or harmonic constraints are respected to floating-point accuracy.

math.NA↗

arXiv2021

On Geometric Fourier Particle In Cell Methods

In this article we describe a unifying framework for variational electromagnetic particle schemes of spectral type, and we propose a novel spectral Particle-In-Cell (PIC) scheme that preserves a discrete Hamiltonian structure. Our work is based on a new abstract variational derivation of particle schemes which builds on a de Rham complex where Low's Lagrangian is discretized using a particle approximation of the distribution function. In this framework, which extends the recent Finite Element based Geometric Electromagnetic PIC (GEMPIC) method to a variety of field solvers, the discretization of the electromagnetic potentials and fields is represented by a de Rham sequence of compatible spaces, and the particle-field coupling procedure is described by approximation operators that commute with the differential operators in the sequence. In particular, for spectral Maxwell solvers the choice of truncated $L^2$ projections using continuous Fourier transform coefficients for the commuting approximation operators yields the gridless Particle-in-Fourier method, whereas spectral Particle-in-Cell methods are obtained by using discrete Fourier transform coefficients computed from a grid. By introducing a new sequence of spectral pseudo-differential approximation operators, we then obtain a novel variational spectral PIC method with discrete Hamiltonian structure that we call Fourier-GEMPIC. Fully discrete schemes are then derived using a Hamiltonian splitting procedure, leading to explicit time steps that preserve the Gauss laws and the discrete Poisson bracket associated with the Hamiltonian structure. These explicit steps share many similarities with standard spectral PIC methods. As arbitrary filters are allowed in our framework, we also discuss aliasing errors and study a natural back-filtering procedure to mitigate the damping caused by anti-aliasing smoothing particle shapes.

physics.comp-ph↗

arXiv2021

Variational Framework for Structure-Preserving Electromagnetic Particle-In-Cell Methods

In this article we apply a discrete action principle for the Vlasov--Maxwell equations in a structure-preserving particle-field discretization framework. In this framework the finite-dimensional electromagnetic potentials and fields are represented in a discrete de Rham sequence involving general finite element spaces, and the particle-field coupling is represented by a set of projection operators that commute with the differential operators. With a minimal number of assumptions which allow for a variety of finite elements and shape functions for the particles, we show that the resulting variational scheme has a general discrete Poisson structure and thus leads to a semi-discrete Hamiltonian system. By introducing discrete interior products we derive a second type of space discretization which is momentum preserving, based on the same finite elements and shape functions. We illustrate our method by applying it to spline finite elements, and to a new spectral discretization where the particle-field coupling relies on discrete Fourier transforms.

math.NA↗

arXiv2019

A projection algorithm on the set of polynomials with two bounds

The motivation of this work stems from the numerical approximation of bounded functions by polynomials satisfying the same bounds. The present contribution makes use of the recent algebraic characterization found in [B. Després, Numer. Algorithms, 76(3), (2017)] and [B. Després and M. Herda, Numer. Algorithms, 77(1), (2018)] where an interpretation of monovariate polynomials with two bounds is provided in terms of a quaternion algebra and the Euler four-squares formulas. Thanks to this structure, we generate a new nonlinear projection algorithm onto the set of polynomials with two bounds. The numerical analysis of the method provides theoretical error estimates showing stability and continuity of the projection. Some numerical tests illustrate this novel algorithm for constrained polynomial approximation.

math.NA↗

arXiv2015

Convergence of a linearly transformed particle method for aggregation equations

We study a linearly transformed particle method for the aggregation equation with smooth or singular interaction forces. For the smooth interaction forces, we provide convergence estimates in $L^1$ and $L^\infty$ norms depending on the regularity of the initial data. Moreover, we give convergence estimates in bounded Lipschitz distance for measure valued solutions. For singular interaction forces, we establish the convergence of the error between the approximated and exact flows up to the existence time of the solutions in $L^1 \cap L^p$ norm.

math.NA↗