Physics-based preconditioners for fluid-plasma simulations with electromagnetics

Summary form only given. Many problems of interest in plasma modeling are subject to the `tyranny of scales', specifically, problems that encompass physical processes that operate on timescales that are separated by many orders of magnitude. Investigating such problems therefore requires the use of implicit time-integration schemes, which advance problem solutions on the timescale of interest, while incorporating the physics of the fast-timescales. One promising route to develop these implicit solvers is the combination of Jacobian-Free Newton-Krylov methods with physics-based pre-conditioners. We will present recent efforts that derive physics-based preconditioners from a linearization of the underlying hyperbolic system. We will review initial results that suggest such an approach can provide an optimal solver for the compressible magnetohydrodynamics equations when applied using multigrid methods. Finally, we will discuss the extension of these pre-conditioners to multi-species fluid-plasma equations that are coupled to Maxwell's equations written in the Darwin approximation.