A parallel Vlasov solver based on local cubic spline interpolation on patches

A method for computing the numerical solution of Vlasov type equations on massively parallel computers is presented. In contrast with Particle In Cell methods which are known to be noisy, the method is based on a semi-Lagrangian algorithm that approaches the Vlasov equation on a grid of phase space. As this kind of method requires a huge computational effort, the simulations are carried out on parallel machines. To that purpose, we present a local cubic splines interpolation method based on a domain decomposition, e.g. devoted to a processor. Hermite boundary conditions between the domains, using ad hoc reconstruction of the derivatives, provide a good approximation of the global solution. The method is applied on various physical configurations which show the ability of the numerical scheme. (c) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.