Self-Consistent Kinetic Simulations

Contents:

Decription of the GISMO code

GISMO is a three-dimensional electromagnetic particle-in-cell code

The code GISMO is described, e.g., in

Büchner and Kuska, ESA SP-389, October 1996, 373, 1996. A four-page description can be downloaded from the International Space Plasma Simulation FTP-server as a postscript-file (buechner.ps)

Results of GISMO simulations

So far GISMO was used, for example, to understand the sausage mode instability of thin current sheets , the route toward spontaneous reconnection through thin current sheets for different initial current sheet models - one as well as two-dimensional sheet equilibria.

Sausage mode instability of thin current sheets

GISMO was used to understand the (sausage mode) instability of thin current sheets.

Harris (one-dimensional) initial equilibrium

The three-dimensional structure of reconnection, starting with the spontaneous instability of a one-dimensional Harris- sheet equilibrium, is depicted by a number of magnetic field lines, shown below

Reconnected (inner part) and current sheet magnetic field lines, obtained by a GISMO simulation of the spontaneous instability of an initially one-dimensional (Harris-) current sheet equilibrium

Initial two-dimensional equilibrium current sheet:

The initial two-dimensional equilibrium

After spontaneous reconnection and plasmoid formation:

The dark outer zone corresponds to the inflowing plasma. A detached plasmoid is formed and moves downstream (to the right)

Cross-References

For more information see, e.g., the Theoretical investigations page of the Magnetospheric particles and fields projects at the Max-Planck Institut für Aeronomie or about particle spectra or about MHD-simulations . About the comparison of the simulation results with experimental observations see the INTERBALL project page of the institute.

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Page curator: Jörg Büchner

Last update: November 24, 1998