Dielectric-in-cell and N-body-dielectric simulations of E*B drifting plasma clouds

Summary form only given, as follows. Two computational methods for simulating E*B drifting plasma clouds are described. Both methods involve representing the plasma cloud by a large number of dielectric elements, each of which drifts on a local electric field. In the dielectric-in-cell code, a grid is laid over the cloud, the DC dielectric constant is estimated on this grid from the positions of the dielectric elements, and then the polarization charge density and the polarization electric field are obtained on the grid by iteratively solving Poisson´s equation. The positions of the dielectric elements are then advanced in time by having them drift in the gridded electric field. In the N-body-dielectric code, the polarization electric field for each element is calculated at the position of N-1 other elements, and then the two-body E*B drift velocities are summed and the particle motion advanced in time. Phenomena that have been simulated with these two codes include the structuring of plasma clouds, the breakup of the clouds, internal convection within the clouds, and the stripping of material from the cloud edges.<>