3D electromagnetic plasma simulation using nonorthogonal unstructured grids

Summary form only given. There is much current interest in developing plasma simulation techniques able to accurately model the geometrical complexity of laboratory plasma devices. The discrete surface integral (DSI) method for solving Maxwell's equations in the time-domain presents an opportunity to achieve the desired geometrical realism. This method allows the use of general nonorthogonal mixed-polyhedral unstructured grids that are direct generalizations of the staggered-grid finite-difference method. The method is conservative in that it locally preserves divergence or charge. An effort has been made to include particles in the 3D electromagnetic field code DS13D.