Convergence of an Eulerian scheme for the Vlasov-Poisson-BGK model

Abstract

The Vlasov-Poisson-BGK (VPBGK) model is a kinetic model for describing the dynamics of collisional plasmas. Although various numerical schemes have been developed for it, a corresponding convergence theory has been absent. This paper fills this gap by presenting the first convergence analysis for a non-splitting, finite-difference Eulerian scheme discretized on the full phase-space grid. A major theoretical obstacle is the mixing of velocity indices induced by the electric field, which hinders the derivation of a uniform lower bound for the discrete solution. To overcome this stability challenge, we propose a modified lower bound estimate suitable for ionized systems that incorporates the step-wise degradation. Under a truncated velocity domain with a Neumann boundary condition, we establish error estimates for the distribution function in a weighted $L^{\infty}$ norm and for the electric field in a $L^{\infty}$ norm, respectively.