An Analytic Boris Pusher for Plasma Simulation
Abstract
This paper discusses how to improve the Boris pusher used to advance relativistic charged particles in fixed electromagnetic fields. We first derive a simpler solution to a flaw previously discovered by others. We then derive a new analytic Boris pusher that is a minor modification to the original split-time scheme, except for the calculation of γ. This analytic pusher assumes that the change of γ during a particle advance is small. It is less accurate than the pusher derived by Fei Li et. al., but is nearly twice as fast. We will discuss when it is advantageous and when it is not.
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