About
277
Publications
19,835
Reads
How we measure 'reads'
A 'read' is counted each time someone views a publication summary (such as the title, abstract, and list of authors), clicks on a figure, or views or downloads the full-text. Learn more
4,405
Citations
Introduction
Broad-based interest in computational physics algorithm
development and implementation, with an evolving interest in computational co-design. Detailed contributions in the
areas of: modern scalable algorithms for fluid and kinetic modeling of plasmas; moving-grid methods, adaptive mesh
refinement; and implicit algorithms, Newton-Krylov methods, multilevel techniques. Broad-based interest in
computational and theoretical plasma physics at the macroscopic scale, the kinetic scale, and across these scales
(multi-scale). Detailed contributions to MFE, magnetic reconnection, and inertial electrostatic confinement.
Current institution
Additional affiliations
August 2012 - present
Publications
Publications (277)
The conventional approach for thermal quench mitigation in a tokamak disruption is through a high-Z impurity injection that radiates away the plasma's thermal energy before it reaches the wall. The downside is a robust Ohmic-to-runaway current conversion due to the radiatively clamped low post-thermal-quench electron temperature. An alternative app...
We consider the adaptive-rank integration of general time-dependent advection-diffusion partial differential equations (PDEs) with spatially variable coefficients. We employ a standard finite-difference method for spatial discretization coupled with diagonally implicit Runge-Kutta schemes for temporal discretization. The fully discretized scheme ca...
We consider the issue of strict, fully discrete \emph{local} energy conservation for a whole class of fully implicit local-charge- and global-energy-conserving particle-in-cell (PIC) algorithms. Earlier studies demonstrated these algorithms feature strict global energy conservation. However, whether a local energy conservation theorem exists (in wh...
Invited oral presentation
We propose a second-order temporally implicit, fourth-order-accurate spatial discretization scheme for the strongly anisotropic heat transport equation characteristic of hot, fusion-grade plasmas. Following [Du Toit et al., Comp. Phys. Comm., 228 (2018)], the scheme transforms mixed-derivative diffusion fluxes (which are responsible for the lack of...
We extend the recently proposed semi-Lagrangian algorithm for the extremely anisotropic heat transport equation [Chac\'on et al., J. Comput. Phys., 272 (2014)] to deal with arbitrary magnetic field topologies. The original scheme (which showed remarkable numerical properties) was valid for the so-called tokamak-ordering regime, in which the magneti...
We propose an optimally performant fully implicit algorithm for the Hall magnetohydrodynamics (HMHD) equations based on multigrid-preconditioned Jacobian-free Newton-Krylov methods. HMHD is a challenging system to solve numerically because it supports stiff fast dispersive waves. The preconditioner is formulated using an operator-split approximate...
Coulomb collisions in particle simulations for weakly coupled plasmas are modeled by the Landau-Fokker-Planck equation, which is typically solved by Monte-Carlo (MC) methods. One of the main disadvantages of MC is the timestep accuracy constraint {\nu}{\Delta}t << 1 to resolve the collision frequency {\nu}. The constraint becomes extremely stringen...
The aim of the poster is twofold:
1) illustrate the new set of resistive wall boundary conditions (BCs) independently implemented in the two nonliear MHD codes SPECYL and PIXIE3D. These BCs combine a thin-shell modelling of the magnetic boundary with a fully consistent velocity boundary, that allows the plasma to impinge on the wall or be sucked aw...
A nonlinear verification benchmark is reported between the three-dimensional magneto-hydrodynamic (3D MHD) codes specyl [Cappello and Biskamp, Nucl. Fusion 36, 571 (1996)] and pixie3d [Chacón, Phys. Plasmas, 15, 056103 (2008)]. This work substantially extends a former successful verification study between the same two codes [Bonfiglio et al., Phys....
An electrostatic, implicit particle-in-cell (PIC) model for collisionless, fully magnetized, paraxial plasma expansions in a magnetic nozzle is introduced with exact charge, energy, and magnetic moment conservation properties. The approach is adaptive in configuration space by the use of mapped meshes, and exploits the strict conservation of the ma...
The nonlinear physics of cross-beam energy transfer (CBET) for multi-speckled laser beams is examined using large-scale particle-in-cell simulations for a range of laser and plasma conditions relevant to indirect-drive inertial confinement fusion (ICF) experiments. The time-dependent growth and saturation of CBET involve complex, nonlinear ion and...
Laser plasma instabilities (LPI) reduce driver-target coupling, alter implosion symmetry, and therefore can fundamentally limit fusion performance in inertial confinement fusion (ICF). Developing a predictive modeling capability for LPI effects can critically advance the success of the field. We perform vector particle-in-cell simulations of multi-...
We introduce a new electrostatic particle-in-cell algorithm capable of using large timesteps compared to particle gyro-period under a uniform external magnetic field. The algorithm extends earlier electrostatic fully implicit PIC implementations with a new asymptotic-preserving particle-push scheme that allows timesteps much larger than particle gy...
Finite-grid (aliasing) instabilities are known to place severe limitations on momentum-conserving particle-in-cell (PIC) methods applied to models including charge separation effects by requiring the resolution of the Debye length. Gyrokinetic models, on the other hand, generally enforce quasi-neutrality thereby removing the Debye length analytical...
The hybrid kinetic-ion fluid-electron plasma model is widely used to study challenging multi-scale problems in space and laboratory plasma physics. Here, a novel conservative scheme for this model employing implicit particle-in-cell techniques [1] is extended to arbitrary coordinate systems via curvilinear maps from logical to physical space. The s...
The magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) equations are continuum models used in the study of a wide range of plasma physics systems, including the evolution of complex plasma dynamics in tokamak disruptions. However, efficient numerical solution methods for MHD are extremely challenging due to disparate time and length scales, strong hyperbolic phenomena, an...
We report on simulations of strong, steady-state collisional planar plasma shocks with fully kinetic ions and electrons, independently confirmed by two fully kinetic codes (an Eulerian continuum and a Lagrangian particle-in-cell). While kinetic electrons do not fundamentally change the shock structure as compared with fluid electrons, we find an ap...
The hybrid kinetic-ion fluid-electron plasma model is widely used to study challenging multi-scale problems in space and laboratory plasma physics. Here, a novel conservative scheme for this model employing implicit particle-in-cell techniques is extended to arbitrary coordinate systems via curvilinear maps from logical to physical space. The schem...
In the current study, we present a gray radiation diffusion solver for the hybrid ion-kinetic, fluid-electron Eulerian code iFP. This diffusion solver, located in the nonlinear LO system, is the first step to couple kinetic radiation to kinetic plasma physics. As far as we know, presently no ICF implosion code has the ability to simulate a kinetic...
As simulations of kinetic plasmas continue to increase in scope and complexity, a rigorous and straightforward method for verifying particle-in-cell (PIC) implementations is necessary to ensure their correctness. In this paper, we present a deterministic method for the rigorous verification of multidimensional, multispecies, electrostatic particle-...
We propose an asymptotic-preserving (AP), uniformly convergent numerical scheme for the relativistic collisional Drift-Kinetic Equation (rDKE) to simulate runaway electrons in axisymmetric toroidal magnetic field geometries typical of tokamak devices. The approach is derived from an exact Green's function solution with numerical approximations of q...
A fully implicit particle-in-cell method for handling the v ∥-formalism of electromagnetic gyrokinetics has been implemented in XGC. By choosing the v ∥-formalism, we avoid introducing the nonphysical skin terms in Ampère's law, which are responsible for the well-known “cancellation problem” in the p ∥-formalism. The v ∥-formalism, however, is know...
We report on the first steady-state simulations of strong plasma shocks with fully kinetic ions and electrons, independently confirmed by two fully kinetic codes (an Eulerian continuum and a Lagrangian particle-in-cell). While kinetic electrons do not fundamentally change the shock structure as compared with fluid electrons, we find an appreciable...
A fully implicit particle-in-cell method for handling the $v_\parallel$-formalism of electromagnetic gyrokinetics has been implemented in XGC. By choosing the $v_\parallel$-formalism, we avoid introducing the non-physical skin terms in Amp\`{e}re's law, which are responsible for the well-known ``cancellation problem" in the $p_\parallel$-formalism....
The magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) equations are continuum models used in the study of a wide range of plasma physics systems, including the evolution of complex plasma dynamics in tokamak disruptions. However, efficient numerical solution methods for MHD are extremely challenging due to disparate time and length scales, strong hyperbolic phenomena, an...
We propose an asymptotic-preserving (AP), uniformly convergent numerical scheme for the relativistic collisional Drift-Kinetic Equation (rDKE) to simulate runaway electrons in axisymmetric toroidal magnetic field geometries typical of tokamak devices. The approach is derived from an exact Green's function solution with numerical approximations of q...
Analysis of Lagrangian Coherent Structures (LCSs) has been showed to be a valid mathematical approach to explain the formation of transport barriers in magnetized plasmas. Such LCSs, borrowed from fluid dynamics theory, can be considered as the hidden skeleton of the system and can be used for studying a wide spectrum of transport mechanisms even i...
We propose an unsupervised machine-learning checkpoint-restart (CR) lossy algorithm for particle-in-cell (PIC) algorithms using Gaussian mixtures (GM). The algorithm features a particle compression stage and a particle reconstruction stage, where a continuum particle distribution function is constructed and resampled, respectively. To guarantee fid...
We propose an unsupervised machine-learning checkpoint-restart (CR) algorithm for particle-in-cell (PIC) algorithms using Gaussian mixtures (GM). The algorithm compresses the particle population per spatial cell by constructing a velocity distribution function using GM. Particles are reconstructed at restart time by local resampling of the Gaussian...
We present a numerical algorithm that enables a phase-space adaptive Eulerian Vlasov-Fokker–Planck (VFP) simulation of inertial confinement fusion (ICF) capsule implosions. The approach relies on extending a recent mass, momentum, and energy conserving phase-space moving-mesh adaptivity strategy to spherical geometry. In configuration space, we emp...
We propose an Anderson Acceleration (AA) scheme for the adaptive Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm for unsupervised learning a finite mixture model from multivariate data (Figueiredo and Jain 2002). The proposed algorithm is able to determine the optimal number of mixture components autonomously, and converges to the optimal solution much fas...
We present a numerical algorithm that enables a phase-space adaptive Eulerian Vlasov-Fokker-Planck (VFP) simulation of an inertial confinement fusion (ICF) capsule implosion. The approach relies on extending a recent mass, momentum, and energy conserving phase-space moving-mesh adaptivity strategy to spherical geometry. In configuration space, we e...
Finite-grid (or aliasing) instabilities are pervasive in particle-in-cell (PIC) plasma simulation algorithms, and force the modeler to resolve the smallest (Debye) length scale in the problem regardless of dynamical relevance. These instabilities originate in the aliasing of interpolation errors between mesh quantities and particles (which live in...
We develop a conservative configuration- and velocity-space (i.e., phase-space) moving-grid strategy for the Vlasov-Fokker–Planck (VFP) equation in a planar geometry. The velocity-space grid is normalized and shifted in terms of the thermal speed and the bulk-fluid velocity, respectively. The configuration-space grid is moved according to a mesh-mo...
We propose an unsupervised machine-learning checkpoint-restart (CR) algorithm for particle-in-cell (PIC) algorithms using Gaussian mixtures (GM). The algorithm features a particle compression stage and a particle reconstruction stage, where a continuum particle distribution function (PDF) is constructed and resampled, respectively. To guarantee fid...
The quasi-neutral hybrid particle-in-cell algorithm with kinetic ions and fluid electrons is a popular model to study multi-scale problems in laboratory, space, and astrophysical plasmas. Here, it is shown that the different spatial discretizations of ions as finite-spatial-size particles and electrons as a grid-based fluid can lead to significant...
We present a new implicit asymptotic preserving time integration scheme for charged-particle orbit computation in arbitrary electromagnetic fields. The scheme is built on the Crank-Nicolson integrator and continues to recover full-orbit motion in the small time-step limit, but also recovers all the first-order guiding center drifts as well as the c...
We consider the solution of the fully kinetic (including electrons) Vlasov-Ampère system in a one-dimensional physical space and two-dimensional velocity space (1D-2V) for an arbitrary number of species with a time-implicit Eulerian algorithm. The problem of velocity-space meshing for disparate thermal and bulk velocities is dealt with by an adapti...
Upon application of a sufficiently strong electric field, electrons break away from thermal equilibrium and approach relativistic speeds. These highly energetic ‘runaway’ electrons (∼ MeV) play a significant role in tokamak disruption physics, and therefore their accurate understanding is essential to develop reliable mitigation strategies. For thi...
Conventional explicit electromagnetic particle-in-cell (PIC) algorithms do not conserve discrete energy exactly. Time-centered fully implicit PIC algorithms can conserve discrete energy exactly, but may introduce large dispersion errors in the light-wave modes. This can lead to intolerable simulation errors where accurate light propagation is neede...
Revolver and Double Shell Inertial Confinement Fusion capsule designs hope to achieve a robust volumetric thermonuclear burn via the use of a high-Z pusher shell filled with a cryogenic D–T fuel. Unfortunately, mix of the pusher material into the fuel (gas) may adversely impact the burn performance. Hydrodynamic instability of the metal/gas interfa...
Nonlinear MHD modeling of toroidal pinch configurations for hot plasma magnetic confinement describes several features of the helical self-organization process, which is observed in both reversed-field pinches and tokamaks. It can also give a hint on why transport barriers are formed, by far one of the more interesting observations in experiments....
The quasi-neutral hybrid particle-in-cell algorithm with kinetic ions and fluid electrons is a popular model to study multi-scale problems in laboratory, space, and astrophysical plasmas. Here, it is shown that the treatment of ions as finite-size particles and electrons as a grid-based fluid can cause significant numerical wave dispersion errors i...
Finite-grid (or aliasing) instabilities are pervasive in particle-in-cell (PIC) plasma simulation algorithms, and force the modeler to resolve the smallest (Debye) length scale in the problem regardless of dynamical relevance. These instabilities originate in the aliasing of interpolation errors between mesh quantities and particles (which live in...
We consider the solution of the fully kinetic (including electrons) Vlasov-Amp\`ere system in a one-dimensional physical space and two-dimensional velocity space (1D-2V) for an arbitrary number of species with a time-implicit Eulerian algorithm. The problem of velocity-space meshing for disparate thermal and bulk velocities is dealt with by an adap...
We present in this paper a two-dimensional, high-order low-order (HOLO) solver for the three temperature radiation transport model with a two-fluid plasma material model. The use of a nonlinear low-order solver allows the easy inclusion of the ion temperature equation into the system. The multi-frequency, deterministic particle high-order solver do...
This Rapid Communication identifies the physical mechanism for the quench of turbulent resistivity in two-dimensional magnetohydrodynamics. Without an imposed, ordered magnetic field, a multiscale, blob-and-barrier structure of magnetic potential forms spontaneously. Magnetic energy is concentrated in thin, linear barriers, located at the interstic...
This Letter identifies the physical mechanism for the quench of turbulent resistivity in 2D MHD. Without an imposed, ordered magnetic field, a multi-scale, blob-and-barrier structure of magnetic potential forms spontaneously. Magnetic energy is concentrated in thin, linear barriers, located at the interstices between blobs. The barriers quench the...
Recent progress in the study of Cahn-Hilliard Navier-Stokes (CHNS) turbulence is summarized. This is an example of \textit{elastic turbulence}, which can occur in elastic (i.e. self-restoring) media. Such media exhibit memory due freezing-in laws, as does MHD, which in turn constrains the dynamics. We report new results in the theory of CHNS turbul...
We present a new implicit asymptotic preserving time integration scheme for charged-particle orbit computation in arbitrary electromagnetic fields. The scheme is built on the Crank-Nicolson integrator and continues to recover full-orbit motion in the small time-step limit, but also recovers all the first-order guiding center drifts as well as the c...
The U.S. Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee was charged “to identify the most promising transformative enabling capabilities (TEC) for the U.S. to pursue that could promote efficient advance toward fusion energy, building on burning plasma science and technology.” A subcommittee of U.S. technical experts was formed and received community inp...
We propose a conservative prescription for perfect-conductor boundary conditions for a Darwin particle-in-cell (PIC) model on curvilinear meshes and arbitrarily shaped boundaries. The Darwin model is a subset of Maxwell's equation in which the electromagnetic mode (light wave) has been analytically removed. This renders the Darwin formulation ellip...
We develop a conservative phase-space grid-adaptivity strategy for the Vlasov-Fokker-Planck equation in a planar geometry. The velocity-space grid is normalized to the thermal speed and shifted by the bulk-fluid velocity. The configuration-space grid is moved according to a mesh-motion-partial-differential equation (MMPDE), which equidistributes a...
Thermal Radiative Transfer (TRT) is the dominant energy transfer mechanism in high-energy density physics with applications in inertial confinement fusion and astrophysics. The stiff interactions between the material and radiation fields make TRT problems challenging to model. In this study, we propose a multi-dimensional extension of the determini...
We propose an efficient, robust, Lagrangian (characteristic-based) transport solver for 1-D time-dependent thermal radiative transfer (TRT) applications within the context of a moment-accelerated (High-Order/Low-Order, HOLO) algorithm. This novel transport algorithm inherits the best features of both particle methods (e.g., time accuracy, phase-spa...
Conventional explicit electromagnetic particle-in-cell (PIC) algorithms do not conserve discrete energy exactly. Time-centered fully implicit PIC algorithms can conserve discrete energy exactly, but may introduce large dispersion errors in the light-wave modes. This can lead to intolerable simulation errors where accurate light propagation is neede...
Upon application of a sufficiently strong electric field, electrons break away from thermal equilibrium and approach relativistic speeds. These highly energetic 'runaway' electrons (~MeV) play a crucial role in understanding tokamak disruption events, and therefore their accurate understanding is essential to develop reliable mitigation strategies....
Fuel-ion species dynamics in hydrodynamiclike shock-driven DTHe3-filled inertial confinement fusion implosion is quantitatively assessed for the first time using simultaneously measured DHe3 and DT reaction histories. These reaction histories are measured with the particle x-ray temporal diagnostic, which captures the relative timing between differ...
![# of particles LO CPU time [s] HO CPU time [s]](profile/Luis-Chacon-3/publication/330466033/figure/tbl3/AS:11431281207455891@1701207266713/of-particles-LO-CPU-time-s-HO-CPU-time-s_Q320.jpg)
We propose an efficient, robust, Lagrangian (characteristic-based) transport solver for the time-dependent thermal radiative Transfer (TRT) applications within the context of a moment-accelerated (High-Order/Low-Order, HOLO) algorithm. This novel transport algorithm inherits the best features of both particle methods (e.g., time accuracy, phase-spa...
Thermal Radiation Transport (TRT) is the dominant energy transfer mechanism in high-energy density physics with applications in fusion plasma physics and astrophysics. The stiff interactions between the material and radiation fields make TRT problems challenging to model. In this study, we propose a multi-dimensional extension of the deterministic...
Wavelet basis functions are a natural tool for analyzing turbulent flows containing localized coherent structures of different spatial scales. Here, wavelets are used to study the onset and subsequent transition to fully developed turbulence from a laminar state. Originally applied to neutral fluid turbulence, an iterative wavelet technique decompo...
Recent simulations have demonstrated that coherent current sheets dominate the kinetic-scale energy dissipation in strong turbulence of magnetized plasma. Wavelet basis functions are a natural tool for analyzing turbulent flows containing localized coherent structures of different spatial scales. Here, wavelets are used to study the onset and subse...
The deterministic particle method for 1D curvilinear geometries, with examples for spherical and cylindrical using a mulit-group Marshak-wave problem.
Expanding the deterministic particle method to multi-dimensional geometries.
Recent progress in the study of Cahn-Hilliard Navier-Stokes (CHNS) turbulence is summarized. This is an example of elastic turbulence, which can occur in elastic (i.e., self-restoring) media. Such media exhibit memory due to freezing-in laws, as does MHD, which in turn constrains the dynamics. We report new results in the theory of CHNS turbulence...
Anomalous thermonuclear yield degradation (i.e., that not describable by single-fluid radiation hydrodynamics) in Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) implosions is ubiquitously observed in both Omega and National Ignition experiments. Multiple experimental and theoretical studies have been carried out to investigate the origin of such a degradation....
The ion velocity structure of a strong collisional shock front in a plasma with multiple ion species is directly probed in laser-driven shock-tube experiments. Thomson scattering of a 263.25 nm probe beam is used to diagnose ion composition, temperature, and flow velocity in strong shocks (M∼6) propagating through low-density (ρ∼0.1 mg/cc) plasmas...
The quasi-neutral hybrid model with kinetic ions and fluid electrons is a promising approach for bridging the inherent multi-scale nature of many problems in space and laboratory plasmas. Here, a novel, implicit, particle-in-cell based scheme for the hybrid model is derived for multi-dimensional electromagnetic problems with multiple ion species, w...
The quasi-neutral hybrid model with kinetic ions and fluid electrons is a promising approach for bridging the inherent multi-scale nature of many problems in space and laboratory plasmas. Here, a novel, implicit, particle-in-cell based scheme for the hybrid model is derived for multi-dimensional electromagnetic problems with multiple ion species, w...
Strong collisional shocks in multi-ion plasmas are featured in many environments, with Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) experiments being one prominent example. Recent work [Keenan ${\it et \ al.}$, PRE ${\bf 96}$, 053203 (2017)] answered in detail a number of outstanding questions concerning the kinetic structure of steady-state, planar plasma sh...
Strong collisional shocks in multi-ion plasmas are featured in many environments, with Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) experiments being one prominent example. Recent work [Keenan ${\it et \ al.}$, PRE ${\bf 96}$, 053203 (2017)] answered in detail a number of outstanding questions concerning the kinetic structure of steady-state, planar plasma sh...
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevFluids.2.109901
This paper reports the main recent results of the RFX-mod fusion science activity. The RFX-mod device is characterized by a unique flexibility in terms of accessible magnetic configurations. Axisymmetric and helically shaped reversed-field pinch equilibria have been studied, along with tokamak plasmas in a wide range of q(a) regimes (spanning from...
We consider a 1D-2V Vlasov-Fokker-Planck multi-species ionic description coupled to fluid electrons. We address temporal stiffness with implicit time stepping, suitably preconditioned. To address temperature disparity in time and space, we extend the conservative adaptive velocity-space discretization scheme proposed in [Taitano et al., J. Comp. Ph...
We consider a 1D-2V Vlasov-Fokker-Planck multi-species ionic description coupled to fluid electrons. We address temporal stiffness with implicit time stepping, suitably preconditioned. To address temperature disparity in time and space, we extend the conservative adaptive velocity-space discretization scheme proposed in [Taitano et al., J. Comp. Ph...
We derive fluid equations for describing steady-state planar shocks of a moderate strength (0<M−1≲1 with M being the shock Mach number) propagating through an unmagnetized quasineutral collisional plasma comprising two separate ion species. In addition to the standard fluid shock quantities, such as the total mass density, mass-flow velocity, and e...
Nonlinear fluid modelling predictions of qualitatively new self-organized helical states in the reversed-field pinch configuration are confirmed by experiments in the RFX-mod device. The new states are realized by using a seed edge magnetic field, which can impose its helical pitch to the whole plasma. In simulations, we show increased magnetic ord...
Strong collisional shocks in multi-ion plasmas are featured in many high-energy-density environments, including Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) implosions. However, their basic structure and its dependence on key parameters (e.g., the Mach number and the plasma ion composition) are poorly understood, and controversies in that regard remain in the...
Strong collisional shocks in multi-ion plasmas are featured in many high-energy-density environments, including Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) implosions. However, their basic structure and its dependence on key parameters (e.g., the Mach number and the plasma ion composition) are poorly understood, and controversies in that regard remain in the...
We study the evolution of the concentration field in a single eddy in the 2D Cahn-Hilliard system to better understand scalar mixing processes in that system. This study extends investigations of the classic studies of flux expulsion in 2D MHD and homogenization of potential vorticity in 2D fluids. Simulation results show that there are three stage...
We study the evolution of the concentration field in a single eddy in the 2D Cahn-Hilliard system to better understand scalar mixing processes in that system. This study extends investigations of the classic studies of flux expulsion in 2D MHD and homogenization of potential vorticity in 2D fluids. Simulation results show that there are three stage...
