Particle simulation of plasmas: review and advances

Abstract

Particle simulation of plasmas, employed since the 1960s, provides a self- consistent, fully kinetic representation of general plasmas. Early incarnations looked for fundamental plasma effects in one-dimensional systems with ∼102-103 particles in periodic electrostatic systems on computers with 100 kB memory. Recent advances model boundary conditions, such as external circuits to wave launchers, collisions and effects of particle-surface impact, all in fully relativistic three-dimensional electromagnetic systems using ∼106-1010 particles on massively parallel computers. While particle codes still enjoy prominance in a number of basic physics areas, they are now often used for engineering devices as well. (Some figures in this article are in colour only in the electronic version)