The lattice gas automata for computational electromagnetics

Time-domain analyses of electromagnetic phenomena such as the FDTD and TLM typically use as their starting point a set of differential equations derived from Maxwell´s equations. Thus, our understanding of the latter phenomena has, in a certain sense, been limited to a realm in which one is forced to visualise abstract field quantities as these equations evolve mathematically. An alternative approach to modelling physical phenomena involves the use of the lattice gas automata. The lattice gas method utilizes the concept of a macroscopic observable emerging from interacting discrete particles on an extremely large fine-grain lattice. It is an approach often used in hydrodynamic modelling and in this context provides us with a more tangible mathematical representation of reality. In this paper, we employ the lattice gas approach and an analogy between acoustics and electromagnetics to investigate linear wave behaviour in two dimensions, as it applies to electromagnetics. In order to model dielectrics a variation of the HPP lattice gas automaton which includes the creation of rest particles is used. Low-cost, special purpose cellular automata machines, such as CAM-8, are invaluable computational resources for the evaluation of cellular automata. We have implemented our models on the CAM-8 and will demonstrate results obtained in the process.