SM54A-04
Multi-Fluid Moment Simulations of Ganymede using the Next-Generation OpenGGCM

Friday, 18 December 2015: 16:45
2016 (Moscone West)
Liang Wang1, Kai Germaschewski1, Ammar Hakim2, Amitava Bhattacharjee3 and Joachim Raeder1, (1)University of New Hampshire Main Campus, Durham, NH, United States, (2)Princeton University, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Princeton, NJ, United States, (3)Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, United States
Abstract:
We coupled the multi-fluid moment code Gkeyll[1,2] to the next-generation OpenGGCM[3], and studied the reconnection dynamics at the Ganymede. This work is part of our effort to tackle the grand challenge of integrating kinetic effects into global fluid models.

The multi-fluid moment model integrates kinetic effects in that it can capture crucial kinetic physics like pressure tensor effects by evolving moments of the Vlasov equations for each species. This approach has advantages over previous models: desired kinetic effects, together with other important effects like the Hall effect, are self-consistently embedded in the moment equations, and can be efficiently implemented, while not suffering from severe time-step restriction due to plasma oscillation nor artificial whistler modes. This model also handles multiple ion species naturally, which opens up opportunties in investigating the role of oxygen in magnetospheric reconnection and improved coupling to ionosphere models.

In this work, the multi-fluid moment solver in Gkeyll was wrapped as a time-stepping module for the high performance, highly flexible next-generation OpenGGCM. Gkeyll is only used to provide the local plasma solver, while computational aspects like parallelization and boundary conditions are handled entirely by OpenGGCM, including interfacing to other models like ionospheric boundary conditions provided by coupling with CTIM [3]. The coupled code is used to study the dynamics near Ganymede, and the results are compared with MHD and Hall MHD results by Dorelli et al. [4].

  1. Hakim, A. (2008). Journal of Fusion Energy, 27, 36–43.
  2. Hakim, A., Loverich, J., & Shumlak, U. (2006). Journal of Computational Physics, 219, 418–442.
  3. Raeder, J., Larson, D., Li, W., Kepko, E. L., & Fuller-Rowell, T. (2008). Space Science Reviews, 141(1-4), 535–555.
  4. Dorelli, J. C., Glocer, A., Collinson, G., & Tóth, G. (2015). Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, 120.
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