Particle-In-Cell Electrostatic Numerical Algorithm

Existing global models of interaction between the solar wind (SW) and the local interstellar medium (LISM) describe the heliosphere that arises as a result of this interaction. There is a strong motivation to develop a kinetic model using the Particle-in-Cell (PIC) method to describe phenomena which appear in the heliosphere. This is however a long term scientific goal. This paper describes an electrostatic Particle-in-Cell numerical model developed in the Institute of Aviation in Warsaw, which includes mechanical and charge exchange collisions between particles in the probabilistic manner using Direct Simulation Monte Carlo method. This is the first step into developing simulations of the heliosphere incorporating kinetic effects in collisionless plasmas. In this paper we focus only on presenting the work, which have been done on the numerical PIC algorithm.