Exploring the Microscopic Physical Processes of Z-pinch by a Modified Electrostatic Direct Implicit Particle-in-Cell Algorithm

Abstract

For investigating efficiently the stagnation kinetic-process of Z-pinch, we develop a novel modified electrostatic implicit particle-in-cell (PIC) algorithm in radial one-dimension for Z-pinch simulation in which a small-angle cumulative binary collision algorithm is used. In our algorithm, the electric field in z-direction is solved by a parallel electrode-plate model, the azimuthal magnetic field is obtained by Ampere's law, and the term for charged particle gyromotion is approximated by the cross product of the averaged velocity and magnetic field. In simulation results of 2 MA deuterium plasma shell Z-pinch, the mass center implosion trajectory agree generally with that obtained by one dimensional MHD simulation, and the plasma current also closely aligns with the external current. The phase space diagrams and radial velocity probability distributions of ions and electrons are obtained. The main kinetic characteristic of electron motion is thermal equilibrium and oscillation, which should be oscillated around the ions, while that of ion motion is implosion inwards. In the region of stagnation radius, the radial velocity probability distributions of ions transit from the non-equilibrium to equilibrium state with the current increasing, while electron’s is basically the equilibrium state. When the initial ion density and current peak aren’t high enough, the ions may not reach their thermal equilibrium state through collisions even in its stagnation phase.