Hybrid fluid-particle simulations of plasma plume evolution following photoablation events

In computational plasma physics, fluid solvers can be used to model collisional plasmas more efficiently than particle-based simulation methods. However, fluid solvers make assumptions on the shape of the plasma's velocity distribution, rendering them less widely applicable than particle-based methods. We have implemented a hybrid modeling capability in the hPIC2 plasma simulation software, which combines fluid and particle methods in the same code. This allows us to simultaneously model highly collisional plasma species with a fluid solver and far-from-equilibrium species using particles. Its utility is demonstrated on a simulation of the photoablation of a material surface, which shows good agreement with previous results.