# From normalized to physical units in Vlasov and multi-fluid simulations¶

Very often we setup a problem in terms of non-dimensional units. An example of one such non-dimensional units is given in Normalized Units notes. Here, I describe one approach to “denormalize” the setup and create a set of dimensional values that are perhaps easier to interpret than the non-dimensional units. This denormalization is not unique, expressing the fact that plasma (and fluid) equations are essentially scale-free.

As an example, consider the following fragment of a Gkeyll input file, describing a typical problem setup.

local Constants = require "Lib.Constants"
-- Universal constants.
epsilon0   = 1.0                         -- permittivity of free space.
mu0        = 1.0                         -- permeability of free space.
lightSpeed = 1.0/math.sqrt(mu0*epsilon0) -- speed of light.

-- User inputs.
massRatio = 1836.153
tau       = 1.0   -- Ratio of ion to electron temperature.
B0        = 0.25  -- Driven magnetic field amplitude.
beta      = 0.01  -- Total plasma beta.

ionMass   = massRatio    -- Ion mass in simulation.
elcMass   = 1.0          -- Electron mass in simulation.
ionCharge = 1.0          -- Ion charge in simulation.
elcCharge = -1.0         -- Electron charge in simulation.

n   = 0.01                            -- Plasma density, same for ions and electrons.
Te  = beta*(B0^2)/(2.0*mu0*(1.0+tau)) -- Electron temperature.
Ti  = tau*Te                          -- Ion temperature.

-- Derived parameters.
vtElc   = math.sqrt(2.0*Te/elcMass)
vtIon   = math.sqrt(2.0*Ti/ionMass)

-- cyclotron frequency
omegaCe = ionCharge*B0/elcMass

rhoe = vtElc/omegaCe

Lx = 200.0*math.pi*rhoe

nuElc = 0.1*w0*(math.pi^2) -- Electron collision frequency.
nuIon = nuElc/math.sqrt(ionMass*(tau^3))   -- Ion collision frequency.

wpe = math.sqrt(n*elcCharge^2/(elcMass*epsilon0)) -- plasma frequency


What do these numbers mean? For example, in the above we set $$n = 0.01$$. Obviously, this does not mean that there are $$1/100$$ particles per meter! If it did, then if our cell-size was say 1/10 of a meter, then we would have hardly any particles in a single cell. In fact, we could no longer treat the problem with a Vlasov equation but would need to use a N-body description instead. So how to interpret these numbers?

First, recall that these are non-dimensional quantities. Hence, these numbers do not have any units and can’t be interpreted as if they have units. To do a meaningful interpretation, we must denormalize the numbers by picking some reference values. There are several reasonable choices one can make. For example, one can choose a reference frequency. Given the speed of light in SI units we can then determine the reference length scale. Then, using SI units values for electron mass, fundamental charge and other quantities, allows us to completely denormalize all values. Of course, other reasonable choices are possible too. For example, we can select a reference length and then use the speed of light to determine the reference time (frequency) unit.

In the following fragment, we select our plasma-frequency as $$\omega_{pe} = 10^{10}$$ $$s^{-1}$$, and the compute a reference frequency and, using speed of light, a length-scale:

wpePhys = 1e10 -- Plasma-frequency in [1/s]
WDIM = wpePhys/wpe -- Reference frequency [1/s]
CDIM = Constants.SPEED_OF_LIGHT -- Reference speed
LDIM = CDIM/WDIM -- Reference length scale


Now, all other quantities can be computed:

nPhys = wpePhys^2*Constants.ELECTRON_MASS*Constants.EPSILON0/Constants.ELEMENTARY_CHARGE^2
OmegaCePhys = omegaCe*WDIM
B0Phys = OmegaCePhys*Constants.ELECTRON_MASS/Constants.ELEMENTARY_CHARGE
vAlfPhys = B0Phys/math.sqrt(Constants.MU0*Constants.ELECTRON_MASS*massRatio*nPhys)


Note we use physical SI unit values of electron mass, elementary charge, $$\epsilon_0$$ and $$\mu_0$$. With this, the various physical values are:

Number density 3.14208e+16 [#/m^3]
Electron thermal speed 5.29963e+06 [m/s]
Ion thermal speed 123678 [m/s]
Debye length 0.000529963 [m]

These numbers appear perfectly reasonable. For example, the plasma parameter, i.e. the number of particles inside a Debye sphere, is computed as $$n \lambda_D^3 = 4.7\times 10^{6}$$, showing that the plasma approximation is perfectly valid.