Eur. Phys. J. D (2014) 68: 208
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2014-50161-0

Regular Article

Relativistic Vlasov code development for high energy density plasmas^*

¹ Institute of Applied Physics and Computational Mathematics, Beijing 100088, P.R. China
² Key Laboratory of HEDP of the Ministry of Education, CAPT, Peking University, Beijing 100871, P.R. China

^a e-mail: wusizhong@iapcm.ac.cn

Received: 28 February 2014
Received in final form: 24 April 2014
Published online: 29 July 2014

Abstract

A newly developed relativistic Vlasov code is introduced. The governing Vlasov-Maxwell equation system is solved numerically in one-dimensional space and three-dimensional momentum space. Spherical coordinate system is adopted to characterize the momentum variables for its potential advantage on reducing computational cost. The resulting Vlasov equation is split into two advection equations with respect to position and momentum, respectively. They are solved with a conservative finite volume scheme, together with techniques suppressing numerical oscillations at sharp interfaces. Relativistic longitudinal plasma oscillations are investigated for different plasma temperatures and wave numbers. Results from code simulations are in good agreement with the existing theories.