Hamiltonian fluid closures of the Vlasov-Ampere equations: From water-bags to N moment models

Moment closures of the Vlasov-Ampere system, whereby higher moments are represented as functions of lower moments with the constraint that the resulting fluid system remains Hamiltonian, are investigated by using water-bag theory. The link between the water-bag formalism and fluid models that involve density, fluid velocity, pressure and higher moments is established by introducing suitable thermodynamic variables. The cases of one, two, and three water-bags are treated and their Hamiltonian structures are provided. In each case, we give the associated fluid closures and we discuss their Casimir invariants. We show how the method can be extended to an arbitrary number of fields, i.e., an arbitrary number of water-bags and associated moments. The thermodynamic interpretation of the resulting models is discussed. Finally, a general procedure to derive Hamiltonian N-field fluid models is proposed. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.