Numerical Methods for Plasma Astrophysics:
From Particle Kinetics to MHD

CSIC Building (#406), Seminar Room 4122.
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Gas Dynamics Beyond Navier-Stokes

Dr. David Levermore

Department of Mathematics at University of Maryland

Abstract:   Regimes where intermolecular collisions are important but not numerous enough to bring a gas into local thermodynamic equilibrium are called transition regimes. In such regimes the compressible Navier-Stokes equations do not model a gas correctly while Boltzmann or particle-based simulations are prohibitively expensive. A family of fluid dynamical models will be introduced that extend into the transition regime and that formally locally dissipate entropy. Possible extensions of this approach to plasmas will be discussed.