Particle-in-cell

<p>In <a href="/facts/Plasma_physics/1d3btMVU">plasma physics</a>, the particle-in-cell (PIC) method refers to a technique used to solve a certain class of <a href="/facts/Partial_differential_equations/DyPsBlv7">partial differential equations</a>.  In this method, individual particles (or fluid elements) in a <a href="/facts/Lagrangian_and_Eulerian_coordinates/sYLvgboC">Lagrangian</a> frame are tracked in continuous <a href="/facts/Phase_space/qPe4Fq57">phase space</a>, whereas moments of the distribution such as densities and currents are computed simultaneously on <a href="/facts/List_of_things_named_after_Leonhard_Euler/F1zh068s">Eulerian</a> (stationary) <a href="/facts/Partition_of_an_interval/FKoPazKA">mesh</a> points.
</p><p>PIC methods were already in use as early as 1955,
even before the first <a href="/facts/Fortran/m1KqjcMU">Fortran</a> compilers were available. The method gained popularity for plasma simulation in the late 1950s and early 1960s by <a href="/facts/Oscar_Buneman/2qPNJUGo">Buneman</a>, <a href="/facts/John_M._Dawson/fKIAKUsp">Dawson</a>, Hockney, Birdsall, Morse and others. In <a href="/facts/Plasma_(physics)/1d3btMVU">plasma physics</a> applications, the method amounts to following the trajectories of charged particles in self-consistent electromagnetic (or electrostatic) fields computed on a fixed mesh.

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Particle-in-cell open-in-new

Particle-in-cell