arXiv subjects

William Taitano

Publications and source records attributed to William Taitano.

8 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

An adaptive and conservative low-rank IMEX solver for the hybrid ion Vlasov-Fokker-Planck and fluid electron system

We present a macroscopically conservative, rank-adaptive method for solving a hybrid Vlasov-Fokker-Planck (VFP) equation in which the ions are treated kinetically, and the electrons are treated as a fluid. Solving this system poses several coupled computational challenges: the curse of dimensionality, conservation of macroscopic quantities, stiffness arising from the multiscale nature of the model, and structure preservation. To address these challenges, we combine several established methods, each targeting a specific difficulty, into a unified framework for solving this nonlinear system. Specifically, we employ the recent Reduced Augmentation Implicit Low-rank (RAIL) method for rank adaptivity in velocity space to combat the curse of dimensionality, high-order implicit-explicit time stepping to handle the multiscale stiffness, and the Local Macroscopic Conservative (LoMaC) procedure for conservative truncation of the solution. The RAIL and LoMaC methods are extended from Cartesian to cylindrical coordinates. The resulting framework accommodates implicit rank-adaptive time integration while remaining conservative and leveraging structure-preserving discretizations. We verify the scheme on a suite of test problems and simulate a standing shock to demonstrate the importance of conserving the macroscopic quantities.

math.NA↗

arXiv2026

A Nodal Discontinuous Galerkin Method with Rank-Adaptive Velocity Space Representation for the Multiscale BGK Model

A novel hybrid algorithm is presented for the Boltzmann-BGK equation, in which a rank-adaptive decomposition is applied solely in the velocity subspace, while a full-rank representation is maintained in the physical (position) space. This approach establishes a foundation for extending modern rank-adaptive techniques to solve the Boltzmann equation in realistic settings, particularly where structured representations, such as conformal geometries, may not be feasible in practical engineering applications. A nodal discontinuous Galerkin method is employed for spatial discretization, coupled with a rank-adaptive decomposition over the velocity grid, as well as implicit-explicit Runge-Kutta methods for time integration. To handle the limit of vanishing collision time, a multiscale implicit integrator based on an auxiliary moment equation is utilized. The algorithm's order of accuracy, reduced computational complexity, and robustness are demonstrated on a suite of canonical gas kinetics problems with increasing complexity.

math.NA↗

arXiv2026

Efficient Sketching-Based Summation of Tucker Tensors

We present efficient, sketching-based methods for the summation of tensors in Tucker format. Leveraging the algebraic structure of Khatri-Rao and Kronecker products, our approach enables compressed arithmetic on Tucker tensors while controlling rank growth and computational cost. The proposed sketching framework avoids the explicit formation of large intermediate tensors, instead operating directly on the factor matrices and core tensors to produce accurate low-rank approximations of tensor sums. Furthermore, we analyze the computational complexity and the theoretical approximation properties of the proposed methodology. Numerical experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach on four problems: two synthetic test cases, a parameter-dependent elliptic equation (commonly referred to as the cookie problem) solved via GMRES, and a one-dimensional linear transport problem discretized via high-order discontinuous Galerkin methods, where repeated tensor summation arises as a core computational bottleneck. Across these examples, the sketching-based summation achieves substantial computational savings while preserving high accuracy relative to direct summation and re-compression.

math.NA↗

arXiv2026

A Structure-Preserving Penalization Method for the Single-species Rosenbluth-Fokker-Planck Equation

The Rosenbluth-Fokker-Planck (RFP) equation describes Coulomb collisional dynamics within and across species in plasmas. It belongs to the broader class of anisotropic-diffusion-advection equations, whose numerical approximation is highly-nontrivial due to its nonlinearity, stiffness, and structural properties such as conservation and entropy dissipation (hence with the Maxwellian distribution as the equilibrium state). In this paper, we propose a structure-preserving penalization scheme for the stiff, single-species RFP equation. The scheme features three novel components: 1) a novel generalization of the well-known Chang-Cooper discretization for the RFP equation that is equilibrium-preserving and enables positivity while preserving mass, momentum, and energy; 2) an easy-to-invert isotropic variable-coefficient penalization operator to deal with the temporal stiffness without resorting to a fully implicit scheme, borrowing ideas from explicit-implicit-null (EIN) methods, and 3) an adaptive timestepping strategy that preserves the positivity of the full penalized scheme. The resulting scheme conserves mass, momentum, and energy strictly, is unconditionally stable, and robustly positivity preserving. The scheme is demonstrated with linear and nonlinear anisotropic diffusion examples of increasing complexity, including several single-species RFP examples.

math.NA↗

arXiv2025

Sylvester-Preconditioned Adaptive-Rank Implicit Time Integrators for Advection-Diffusion Equations with Variable Coefficients

We consider the adaptive-rank integration of {2D and 3D} time-dependent advection-diffusion partial differential equations (PDEs) with variable coefficients. We employ a standard finite-difference method for spatial discretization coupled with diagonally implicit Runge-Kutta temporal schemes. The discrete equation is a generalized Sylvester equation (GSE), which we solve with an adaptive-rank algorithm structured around three key strategies: {(i) constructing dimension-wise subspaces based on an extended Krylov strategy, (ii) developing an effective preconditioner for the reduced coefficient matrix, and (iii) efficiently computing the residual of the equation without explicitly reverting to the full-rank form. {The low-rank decomposition is performed in 2D using SVD, and with high-order SVD (HOSVD) in 3D to represent the tensor in a compressed Tucker format.} The computational complexity of the proposed approach {is demonstrated numerically to} be comparable to the constant-coefficient case [El Kahza et al, J. Comput. Phys., 518 (2024)], scaling as $\mathcal{O}(N {r^2} + {r^{d+1}})$ for $d$-dimensional problems (here, $d = 2$ or $3$), with $N$ the resolution in one dimension and $r$ the maximal rank during the Krylov iteration (which we find to be largely independent of $N$). We present numerical examples that illustrate the computational efficacy and complexity of our algorithm.}

math.NA↗

arXiv2024

Krylov-based Adaptive-Rank Implicit Time Integrators for Stiff Problems with Application to Nonlinear Fokker-Planck Kinetic Models

We propose a high order adaptive-rank implicit integrators for stiff time-dependent PDEs, leveraging extended Krylov subspaces to efficiently and adaptively populate low-rank solution bases. This allows for the accurate representation of solutions with significantly reduced computational costs. We further introduce an efficient mechanism for residual evaluation and an adaptive rank-seeking strategy that optimizes low-rank settings based on a comparison between the residual size and the local truncation errors of the time-stepping discretization. We demonstrate our approach with the challenging Lenard-Bernstein Fokker-Planck (LBFP) nonlinear equation, which describes collisional processes in a fully ionized plasma. The preservation of {the equilibrium state} is achieved through the Chang-Cooper discretization, and strict conservation of mass, momentum and energy via a Locally Macroscopic Conservative (LoMaC) procedure. The development of implicit adaptive-rank integrators, demonstrated here up to third-order temporal accuracy via diagonally implicit Runge-Kutta schemes, showcases superior performance in terms of accuracy, computational efficiency, equilibrium preservation, and conservation of macroscopic moments. This study offers a starting point for developing scalable, efficient, and accurate methods for high-dimensional time-dependent problems.

math.NA↗

arXiv2022

Constraints on Ion Velocity Distributions from Fusion Product Spectroscopy

Recent inertial confinement fusion experiments have shown primary fusion spectral moments which are incompatible with a Maxwellian velocity distribution description. These results show that an ion kinetic description of the reacting ions is necessary. We develop a theoretical classification of non-Maxwellian ion velocity distributions using the spectral moments. At the mesoscopic level, a monoenergetic decomposition of the velocity distribution reveals there are constraints on the space of spectral moments accessible by isotropic distributions. General expressions for the directionally dependent spectral moments of anisotropic distributions are derived. At the macroscopic level, a distribution of fluid element velocities modifies the spectral moments in a constrained manner. Experimental observations can be compared to these constraints to identify the character and isotropy of the underlying reactant ion velocity distribution and determine if the plasma is hydrodynamic or kinetic.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2013

Fluid preconditioning for Newton-Krylov-based, fully implicit, electrostatic particle-in-cell simulations

A recent proof-of-principle study proposes an energy- and charge-conserving, nonlinearly implicit electrostatic particle-in-cell (PIC) algorithm in one dimension [Chen et al, J. Comput. Phys., 230 (2011) 7018]. The algorithm in the reference employs an unpreconditioned Jacobian-free Newton-Krylov method, which ensures nonlinear convergence at every timestep (resolving the dynamical timescale of interest). Kinetic enslavement, which is one key component of the algorithm, not only enables fully implicit PIC a practical approach, but also allows preconditioning the kinetic solver with a fluid approximation. This study proposes such a preconditioner, in which the linearized moment equations are closed with moments computed from particles. Effective acceleration of the linear GMRES solve is demonstrated, on both uniform and non-uniform meshes. The algorithm performance is largely insensitive to the electron-ion mass ratio. Numerical experiments are performed on a 1D multi-scale ion acoustic wave test problem.

physics.plasm-ph↗