Topic/Type: 2.2 Kinetic methods, Particle-In-Cell and Vlasov, Poster

Results on a three-dimensional full particle simulation of collisionless quasi perpendicular shock

I. Shinohara, M. Fujimoto

Institute of Space and Astronautical Science / Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

The high spec computational power of the JAXA\'s new supercomputer system, Fujitsu FX-1, enables us to perform really macro-scale three-dimensional situations with full particle plasma simulation (particle-in-cell method). For example, fully three-dimensional kinetic approach to collisionless shock problems, that is one of the most important problems in the space plasma science, is possible, and a challenging run is being executed for a pioneering study of the topic. $\small \sim 0.5$ billion grids are allocated for the electromagnetic fields, and $\small \sim 0.1$ trillion particles are loaded into the simulation run. The computational efficiency of the particle-in-cell code is about 9% of the peak performance using 5776 CPU cores (57 TFlops).
The simulation parameters were selected to simulate a ESA\'s Cluster-II spacecraft observational result reported by Seki et al. (2009). The full mass ratio M/m=1840 was taken for this simulation, and almost one ion inertia length square could be allocated for the simulation. In this simulation, no self-shock-reformation process as can be seen in previous one-dimensional simulations is found, and, in contrast, quite complicated wave activity is found at the shock foot region. In this presentation, comparing the 3D results with previous 1D and 2D simulation results and the observational results, the 3D nature of the shock transision region of quasi-perpendicular shock will be discussed.