Numerical study of vortices within a background vortex

Abstract

This study aims to exploit the analogy of vortex dynamics in a 2D ideal fluid and 2D non-neutral plasma. Numerical simulations using contour dynamics with adaptive refinement are conducted to study the dynamics of one or more vortices within a background vortex, and results are compared with experiments using magnetized non-neutral electron plasmas confined in a Penning-Malmberg trap. This comparison is based on the isomorphism between the 2D Euler equations for ideal fluid and the 2D drift-Poisson equations for non-neutral plasma, where the the fluid vorticity and stream function correspond to the plasma charge density and electric potential. Agreement and discrepancy between simulation and experiment are observed and discussed.