Implementing a particle-fluid model of auroral electrons

Abstract

The particle-fluid model of auroral electrons that is presented in [1] is a major step forward within the field of dynamic models of the auroral generation mechanisms. The model is, however, also an example where the implementation of a physical model requires a lot of knowledge from the field of computer science. Therefore, this paper contains a detailed description of the implementation behind the particlefluid model. We present how the particles are implemented in doubly linked lists, how the fluid equations are solved in a time-efficient algorithm, and how these two parts are coupled into a single framework. We also describe how the code is parallelized with an efficiency of nearly 100%. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.