Benchmark for two-dimensional large scale coherent structures in partially magnetized <i>E</i>  ×  <i>B</i> plasmas—community collaboration &amp; lessons learned

Abstract Low-temperature plasmas (LTPs) are essential to both fundamental scientific research and critical industrial applications. As in many areas of science, numerical simulations have become a vital tool for uncovering new physical phenomena and guiding technological development. Code benchmarking remains crucial for verifying implementations and evaluating performance. This work continues the Landmark benchmark initiative, a series specifically designed to support the verification of LTP codes. In this study, seventeen simulation codes from a collaborative community of nineteen international institutions modeled a partially magnetized E × B Penning discharge. The emergence of large scale coherent structures, or rotating plasma spokes, endows this configuration with an enormous range of time scales, making it particularly challenging to simulate. The codes showed excellent agreement on the rotation frequency of the spoke as well as key plasma properties, including time-averaged ion density, plasma potential, and electron temperature profiles. Achieving this level of agreement came with challenges, and we share lessons learned on how to conduct future benchmarking campaigns. Comparing code implementations, computational hardware, and simulation runtimes also revealed interesting trends, which are summarized with the aim of guiding future plasma simulation software development.

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Journal
Plasma Sources Science and Technology
Published
2026-01-19
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6595/ae3985
Primary Topic
Plasma Diagnostics and Applications
Type
article
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article

Benchmark for two-dimensional large scale coherent structures in partially magnetized E  ×  B plasmas—community collaboration & lessons learned

Enrique Bello-Benítez, Maryam Reza, Anne Bourdone, Pietro Parodi et al.
Plasma Sources Science and Technology
Plasma Diagnostics and Applications
article

Benchmark for two-dimensional large scale coherent structures in partially magnetized E  ×  B plasmas—community collaboration & lessons learned

Enrique Bello-Benítez, Maryam Reza, Anne Bourdone, Pietro Parodi, Denis Eremin, Alberto Marín-Cebrián, Aaron Knoll, Dmytro Sydorenko, P. Minelli, Olivier Vermorel, Bénédicte Cuenot, Miguel P. Encinar, Andrew T. Powis, Willca Villafana, Federico Petronio, Mina Papahn Zadeh, Farbod Faraji, A. C. Denig, Eduardo Ahedo, Zoltán Donkó, Mario Merino, Paul-Quentin Elias, Lucas Beving, Peter Hartmann, Kentaro Hara, Liang Xu, Miles M Turner, Matthew Hopkins, Alejandro Alvarez-Laguna, Andrei I Smolyakov, Pablo Fajardo, Filippo Cichocki, Jean-Pierre Boeuf, Gwenael Fubiani, Thierry E Magin, Laurent Garrigues, Guillaume Bogopolsky, Francesco Taccogna, Igor D Kaganovich, Giovanni Lapenta, Nicolas Barleon
article en

Abstract

Abstract Low-temperature plasmas (LTPs) are essential to both fundamental scientific research and critical industrial applications. As in many areas of science, numerical simulations have become a vital tool for uncovering new physical phenomena and guiding technological development. Code benchmarking remains crucial for verifying implementations and evaluating performance. This work continues the Landmark benchmark initiative, a series specifically designed to support the verification of LTP codes. In this study, seventeen simulation codes from a collaborative community of nineteen international institutions modeled a partially magnetized E × B Penning discharge. The emergence of large scale coherent structures, or rotating plasma spokes, endows this configuration with an enormous range of time scales, making it particularly challenging to simulate. The codes showed excellent agreement on the rotation frequency of the spoke as well as key plasma properties, including time-averaged ion density, plasma potential, and electron temperature profiles. Achieving this level of agreement came with challenges, and we share lessons learned on how to conduct future benchmarking campaigns. Comparing code implementations, computational hardware, and simulation runtimes also revealed interesting trends, which are summarized with the aim of guiding future plasma simulation software development.

Plasma Sources Science and TechnologyVol. 35(2)
National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (IT), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR), Université Libre de Bruxelles (BE), École Polytechnique (FR), Von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics (BE), University of Alberta (CA), Université Fédérale de Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées (FR), Université Paris-Saclay (FR), Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (US), University of Saskatchewan (CA), Sorbonne Université (FR), Sandia National Laboratories (US), Centre Européen de Recherche et de Formation Avancée en Calcul Scientifique (FR), Laboratoire Plasma et Conversion d'Energie (FR), HUN-REN Wigner Research Centre for Physics (HU), Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati (IT), Laboratoire de Physique des Plasmas (FR), Institute for the Science and Technology of Plasmas (IT), Dublin City University (IE), Imperial College London (GB), Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (ES), Ruhr University Bochum (DE), Stanford University (US), KU Leuven (BE)
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