A kinetic-magnetohydrodynamic model with adaptive mesh refinement for modeling heliosphere neutral-plasma interaction

The charge exchange between the interstellar medium (ISM) and the solar wind plasma is crucial for determining the structures of the heliosphere. Since both the neutral-ion and neutral-neutral collision mean free paths are either comparable to or larger than the size of the heliosphere, the neutral...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2024-03
Main Authors: Chen, Yuxi, Toth, Gabor, Powell, Erick, Talha Arshad, Bair, Ethan, Kornbleuth, Marc, Opher, Merav
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Algorithms
Charge exchange
Finite element method
Grid refinement (mathematics)
Heliosphere
Interstellar matter
Magnetohydrodynamics
Maxwellian distribution
Modelling
Neutral particles
Plasma interactions
Simulation
Solar wind
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Summary:The charge exchange between the interstellar medium (ISM) and the solar wind plasma is crucial for determining the structures of the heliosphere. Since both the neutral-ion and neutral-neutral collision mean free paths are either comparable to or larger than the size of the heliosphere, the neutral phase space distribution can deviate far away from the Maxwellian distribution. A kinetic description for the neutrals is crucial for accurately modeling the heliosphere. It is computationally challenging to run three-dimensional (3D) time-dependent kinetic simulations due to the large number of macro-particles. In this paper, we present the new highly efficient SHIELD-2 model with a kinetic model of neutrals and a magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) model for the ions and electrons. To improve the simulation efficiency, we implement adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) and particle splitting and merging algorithms for the neutral particles to reduce the particle number that is required for an accurate simulation. We present several tests to verify and demonstrate the capabilities of the model.
ISSN:2331-8422