Benchmark for two-dimensional large scale coherent structures in partially magnetized E × B plasmas—community collaboration & lessons learned
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
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.
Date Issued
2026-02-01
Date Acceptance
2026-01-16
Citation
Plasma Sources Science and Technology, 2026, 35 (2)
ISSN
0963-0252
Publisher
IOP Publishing
Journal / Book Title
Plasma Sources Science and Technology
Volume
35
Issue
2
Copyright Statement
© 2026 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
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Publication Status
Published
Article Number
025002
Date Publish Online
2026-02-05