High-order finite-volume modeling of drift waves.

Abstract The paper discusses high-order finite-volume numerical modeling of drift waves, which is an ubiquitous phenomenon in magnetized plasmas. It is found that some standard discretization methods applied to the conservative form of the governing equations can lead to a numerical instability. A method to stabilize high-order discretization is proposed and demonstrated to work in numerical simulations performed with the fourth-order finite-volume code COGENT. As practical examples, a stable drift-wave solution with adiabatic electrons and the collisionless (universal) drift-wave instability driven by electron kinetic effects are considered. Application of the present analysis to a broader range of computational fluid dynamics systems is discussed. Highlights • High-order finite-volume numerical modeling of drift waves and other incompressible flow systems is discussed. • It is shown that some standard high-order finite-volume discretization methods can lead to a numerical instability. • A method to stabilize a high-order discretization is proposed and is demonstrated to work in COGENT simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]