A conservative scheme for the relativistic Vlasov–Maxwell system

A new scheme for numerical integration of the 1D2V relativistic Vlasov–Maxwell system is proposed. Assuming that all particles in a cell of the phase space move with the same velocity as that of the particle located at the center of the cell at the beginning of each time step, we successfully integrate the system with no artificial loss of particles. Furthermore, splitting the equations into advection and interaction parts, the method conserves the sum of the kinetic energy of particles and the electromagnetic energy. Three test problems, the gyration of particles, the Weibel instability, and the wakefield acceleration, are solved by using our scheme. We confirm that our scheme can reproduce analytical results of the problems. Though we deal with the 1D2V relativistic Vlasov–Maxwell system, our method can be applied to the 2D3V and 3D3V cases.