SPICES1 - A SMART-PARTICLE CODE FOR KINETIC PLASMA SIMULATION

SPICES1 (Smart Particle In Cell ElectroStatic 1D) simulates 1D plasmas governed by the Vlasov equation. A linear Fokker-Planck operator can be used to represent collisions between plasma species and a given bac kground. The electrostatic approximation is used and no magnetic field is present. SPICES1 uses computational particles with internal degree s of freedom (smart particles) to represent better the evolution of th e many physical particles allocated to one single computational partic le, employing a modified version of the BLOB method. The BLOB approach leads to inexpensive low noise calculations and has the additional ad vantage to allow an accurate and deterministic treatment of collision operators. The present work describes the steps taken to implement the BLOB method to create SPICES1. All the instructions required to use S PICES1 are given in details. Several test cases and paradigmatic appli cations are presented to illustrate the capabilities of SPICES1 and to provide benchmarks for testing purposes. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B. V.