Videos

Pathways Workshop: Kinetic Theory & Stochastic Partial Differential Equations: Structure-Preserving Particle Method for Collisional Plasmas

Presenter
August 22, 2025
Keywords:
  • singular SPDEs
  • regularity structures
  • paracontrolled calculus
  • KPZ equation
  • space-time white noise
  • stochastic quantization
  • Multiscale analysis
  • Intermittency
  • SPDEs from fluid dynamics
  • Boltzmann equation
  • Vlasov-Poisson system
  • Vlasov-Maxwell system
  • Fokker-Planck equation
  • BBGKY hierarchy
MSC:
  • 60H15 - Stochastic partial differential equations (aspects of stochastic analysis) [See also 35R60]
  • 82C40 - Kinetic theory of gases in time-dependent statistical mechanics
Abstract
The Vlasov-Maxwell-Landau equation is widely regarded as a first-principles model for plasma physics. In this talk, we introduce a novel particle method for this equation that simultaneously models particle transport, electromagnetic field effects, and Coulomb collisions. The method arises from a regularization of the variational formulation of the Landau collision operator, leading to a discretization that conserves mass, momentum, and energy, while also dissipating entropy. We will also discuss recent progress on energy-conserving time discretizations applied to the resulting particle system.