An external circuit model for electromagnetic particle-in-cell simulations

Summary form only given. In general, the operating characteristics of RF vacuum electronic or plasma devices are affected by the power supply, e.g., a pushing effect on the oscillating frequency of a magnetron by a supplied anode current. The external impedance connected to the system under study should be included in the electromagnetic (EM) particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations especially when the system is in a transient state or characterized with a dynamic impedance. In this work, an algorithm for coupling external circuit elements to EM PIC simulations is developed. The circuit equation including an external voltage V_s or current source I_s, resistance R, inductance L, capacitance C, and the dynamic load (I-V) is solved simultaneously with the EM PIC updaters through an instant measured voltage V across the system to obtain the supplied current I for feeding into the system. This external circuit model is under testing and will be implemented in a 3D conformal finite-difference time-domain PIC code, VORPAL.