Jimmy Juno, University of Iowa
When
Abstract: Throughout the universe there are many many-body systems where understanding the interactions between the motions of individual particles and the resultant fields are critical to understanding the behavior of the system, from the dynamics of gases and plasmas to the evolution of self-gravitating systems such as stellar populations in galaxies. Typically, these many-body systems are best described by kinetic theory, where the particle distribution function can be used as a statistical description of the individual particle trajectories. The wealth of data within the distribution function cannot be understated, and the quality of distribution function data across astrophysical disciplines, from the GAIA mission to Parker Solar Probe, has increased dramatically in recent years. Nevertheless, the quality of distribution function data from computational simulations remains lacking. In this presentation, I will demonstrate the utility of distribution function data for a particular plasma application: energization in a collisionless shock, with a standard particle-based method run at very high particle resolution. Sufficiently high resolution allows us to leverage novel distribution function-based diagnostics, such as the field-particle correlation technique, and completely characterize the energy exchange between the plasma and electromagnetic fields, but at significant cost. Thus, I will motivate and showcase the work of the Gkeyll simulation framework, which has a one-of-a-kind grid-based Boltzmann solver. I will briefly discuss the numerical challenges overcome, as well as the unique capabilities of this continuum kinetic method. I will conclude with where I think the future of these methods is, including an application to high energy astrophysics: coherent radio emission from pulsars. *Please join for refreshments at 3:00pm. The new location is outdoors, in between the Kuiper Building and Flandrau, under the "Moon Tree".