Comparisons of Two-Fluid Plasma Models

Advanced physics fluid models of plasmas are explored. Euler equations are used to model ion and electron fluids, while Maxwellpsilas equations are used to model the electric and magnetic fields. This constitutes the ideal two-fluid plasma model. Asymptotic approximations are applied to the ideal two-fluid plasma model to obtain Hall-magnetohydrodynamics (Hall-MHD). The two-fluid plasma model is compared to Hall-MHD to study the physics that is lost by applying the approximations in addition to comparing the simplicity of implementation of the models. The two models are compared for their abilities to capture two-fluid effects for applications of magnetic reconnection and the axisymmetric Z-pinch. It is observed that both models are able to capture two-fluid effects but Hall-MHD requires greater computational effort compared to the two-fluid model.