T. N. Kato | Searcharxiv

arXiv2026

Hyper Boris integrators for kinetic plasma simulations and their connection to 3D rotation representations

Particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation is one of the most important research tools in theoretical plasma physics. To solve the motion of charged particles, the Boris method (a.k.a. the Boris integrator/pusher/solver) has been used for more than a half century. Although the Boris solver has good accuracy, the demand for high-accuracy numerical solvers has been increasing, and new integrators have been actively developed. In this contribution, we present novel high-accuracy particle integrators, the hyper Boris integrators, for nonrelativistic kinetic simulations. We further discuss their connection to 3D rotation representations.

physics.comp-ph↗

arXiv2000

Application of random walk theory to the first order Fermi acceleration in shock waves

We formulate the first order Fermi acceleration in parallel shock waves in terms of the random walk theory. The formulation is applicable to any value of the shock speed and the particle speed, in particular to the acceleration in relativistic shocks, as long as large angle scattering is suitable for the scattering process of particles. We first show that the trajectory of a particle suffering from large angle scattering can be treated as a random walk in a moving medium with an absorbing boundary (e.g., the shock front). We derive an integral equation to determine the density of scattering points of the random walk, and by solving it approximately we obtain approximate solutions of the probability density of pitch angle at and the return probability after the shock crossing in analytical form. These approximate solutions include corrections of several non-diffusive effects to the conventional diffusion approximation and we show that they agree well with the Monte Carlo results for isotropic scattering model for any shock speed and particle speed. Finally, we give an analytical expression of the spectral index of accelerated particles in parallel shocks valid for arbitrary shock speed.

astro-ph↗