High order Asymptotic Preserving penalized numerical schemes for the Euler-Poisson system in the quasi-neutral limit

Abstract

In this work, we focus on the development of high-order Implicit-Explicit (IMEX) finite volume numerical methods for plasmas in quasineutral regimes. At large temporal and spatial scales, plasmas tend to be quasineutral, meaning that the local net charge density is nearly zero. However, at small time and spatial scales, measured by the the Debye length, quasineutrality breaks down. In such regimes, standard numerical methods face severe stability constraints, rendering them practically unusable. To address this issue, we introduce and analyze a class of penalized IMEX Runge-Kutta methods for the Euler-Poisson (EP) system, specifically designed to handle the quasineutral limit. These schemes are uniformly stable with respect to the Debye length and degenerate into high-order methods as the quasineutral limit is approached. Several numerical tests confirm that the proposed methods exhibit the desired properties.