Molecular Dynamics and Hydrodynamics Hybrid Method for Moderately Coupled Plasmas

Starting from a multispecies Klimontovich description, we derive a hybrid method that models dense, moderately coupled plasmas. The model consists of coupled molecular dynamic (MD) and hydrodynamic equations of motion to govern the dynamics of the ion species and electrons respectively. With this model, we keep correlation information and is exact at describing the system until closures are added. Different closures allow for the modeling of phenomena such as heat conduction, or energy transfer between particles that would not be possible if simpler methods like Yukawa particles were employed. Unlike a pure MD model which requires a small timescale to resolve the dynamics of the fast moving electrons relative to the ion species, this model avoids small timescales making computation more tractable while retaining physics of interest. As a first test case, we aim to reproduce the dispersion relation for ultra-cold plasmas as presented in [1]. As our first application, we will explore interface mixing where the usual pair potential is known to fail.