Rebecca Udby will present her comprehensive exam/AMOP Seminar topic, “Reducing and Modeling Noncanonical Hamiltonian Vlasov Systems”.

Abstract: Plasma evolution is dictated by the Vlasov equation coupled to electromagnetic fields. The noncanonical Hamiltonian structure of the Vlasov-Poisson and Vlasov-Maxwell systems is investigated in the context of plasma evolution. Noncanonical Poisson brackets are defined that maintain the Hamiltonian structure under general transformations. Fluid and moment reductions on each of these systems are explored, including how the Poisson brackets change and how to find appropriate closure functions. The concept of computational “phase-space blobs” is examined in relation to these reductions and is compared to standard Particle-in-Cell algorithms.