Numerical Modeling of Energetic Charged-particle Transport with SPECTRUM Software: General Approach and Artificial Effects due to Field Discretization

Test-particle simulations are an important tool for magnetospheric and heliophysics research. In this paper, we present the Space Plasma and Energetic Charged particle TRansport on Unstructured Meshes (SPECTRUM) software as a novel tool for performing these types of simulations in arbitrary astrophy...

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Published inThe Astrophysical journal. Supplement series Vol. 272; no. 2; pp. 46 - 59
Main Authors Guzmán, J. G. Alonso, Florinski, V., Tóth, G., Sharma, S., van der Holst, B., Opher, M.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Saskatoon The American Astronomical Society 01.06.2024
IOP Publishing
Subjects
Charged particles
Cosmic rays
Discretization
Distributed computing
Heliosphere
Magnetospheres
Monte Carlo methods
Numerical models
Particle motion
Particle transport
Software
Solar wind
Space plasmas
Space science
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Summary:Test-particle simulations are an important tool for magnetospheric and heliophysics research. In this paper, we present the Space Plasma and Energetic Charged particle TRansport on Unstructured Meshes (SPECTRUM) software as a novel tool for performing these types of simulations in arbitrary astrophysical environments, specified either analytically or numerically (i.e., on a grid). We discuss and benchmark SPECTRUM’s interface with meshed magnetohydrodynamic backgrounds, including output from the Block Adaptive Tree Solar-wind Roe-type Upwind Scheme (BATS-R-US) code. We also investigate the effects of field discretization on both deterministic and stochastic particle motion, with emphasis on space science applications, concluding that the discretization error typically enhances the diffusive behavior of the ensemble.
Bibliography:The Sun and the Heliosphere
AAS52075
ISSN:0067-0049
1538-4365
DOI:10.3847/1538-4365/ad4637