A high-resolution global Vlasov simulation of a small dielectric body with a weak intrinsic magnetic field on the K computer

Abstract

The interaction between the solar wind and solar system bodies, such as planets, satellites, and asteroids, is one of the fundamental global-scale phenomena in space plasma physics. In the present study, the electromagnetic environment around a small dielectric body with a weak intrinsic magnetic field is studied by means of a first-principle kinetic plasma simulation, which is a challenging task in space plasma physics as well as high-performance computing. Due to several computational limitations, five-dimensional full electromagnetic Vlasov simulations with two configuration space and three velocity space coordinates are performed with two different spatial resolutions. The Debye-scale charge separation is not solved correctly in the simulation run with a low spatial resolution, while all the physical processes in collisionless plasma are included in the simulation run with a high spatial resolution. The direction comparison of electromagnetic fields between the two runs shows that there is small difference in the structure of magnetic field lines. On the other hand, small-scale fine structures of electrostatic fields are enhanced by the electric charge separation and the charge accumulation on the surface of the body in the high-resolution run, while these structures are absent in the low-resolution runs. These results are consistent with the conventional understanding of plasma physics that the structure and dynamics of global magnetic fields, which are generally described by the magneto-hydro-dynamics (MHD) equations, are not affected by electron-scale microphysics.