EGU21-8830
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-8830
EGU General Assembly 2021
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Vlasov simulation of electrons in the context of hybrid global models: An eVlasiator approach

Markus Battarbee1, Thiago Brito1, Markku Alho1, Yann Pfau-Kempf1, Maxime Grandin1, Urs Ganse1, Konstantinos Papadakis1, Andreas Johlander1, Lucile Turc1, Maxime Dubart1, and Minna Palmroth1,2
Markus Battarbee et al.
  • 1University of Helsinki, University of Helsinki, Department of Physics, Helsinki, Finland (markus.battarbee@helsinki.fi)
  • 2Finnish Meteorological Institute, Helsinki, Finland

Modern investigations of dynamical space plasma systems such as magnetically complicated topologies within the Earth's magnetosphere make great use of supercomputer models as well as spacecraft observations. Space plasma simulations can be used to investigate energy transfer, acceleration, and plasma flows on both global and local scales. Simulation of global magnetospheric dynamics requires spatial and temporal scales achievable currently through magnetohydrodynamics or hybrid-kinetic simulations, which approximate electron dynamics as a charge-neutralizing fluid. We introduce a novel method for Vlasov-simulating electrons in the context of a hybrid-kinetic framework in order to examine the energization processes of magnetospheric electrons. Our extension of the Vlasiator hybrid-Vlasov code utilizes the global simulation dynamics of the hybrid method whilst modelling snapshots of electron dynamics on global spatial scales and temporal scales suitable for electron physics. Our eVlasiator model is shown to be stable both for single-cell and small-scale domains, and the solver successfully models Langmuir waves and Bernstein modes. We simulate a small test-case section of the near-Earth magnetotail plasma sheet region, reproducing a number of electron distribution function features found in spacecraft measurements.

How to cite: Battarbee, M., Brito, T., Alho, M., Pfau-Kempf, Y., Grandin, M., Ganse, U., Papadakis, K., Johlander, A., Turc, L., Dubart, M., and Palmroth, M.: Vlasov simulation of electrons in the context of hybrid global models: An eVlasiator approach, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-8830, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-8830, 2021.

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