Computer simulations of plasma with the one-dimensional electrostatic PIC method: A tutorial description of the method and the development of a desktop application

The particle-in-cell (PIC) method constitutes one of the most useful kinetic plasma models being able to simulate different plasma phenomena. The basic assumption of the electrostatic PIC model on which we focus considers that positions and velocities of charged particles take continuous values at the phase space, while spatial macroscopic quantities such as charge density and the associated electric field caused by particle dynamics are calculated at discrete spatial points. We explain the physical details of the PIC which can be obscure for the novel reader and also explain in detail the numerical implementation of the PIC method trying to clarify all the algorithm steps and through the implementation of the numerical code we simulate different electrostatic phenomena in order to gain insight of the plasma physics behind. Also, we develop an application called PlasmAPP which will allow the user to simulate plasma phenomena by varying its parameters trough the use of a friendly graphical user interface. The user will be able to choose the numerical method for solving the equations of motion (Leapgfrog, Euler's Method, Runge-Kutta 4th order) and the Poisson´s equation (Fast Fourier transform, Finite Difference Method) with the aim to compare the functionality and the velocity of the methods. In addition, the application will allow the user to select which diagnostics he wants to see. To show the functionality of the application, we simulate different examples such as the two-stream instability, cold plasma oscillations, ion acoustic waves, and Buneman Instability.