A method for incorporating Gauss' lasw into electromagnetic pic codes

Abstract An algorithm is presented which solves a modified set of Maxwell's equations, none of them elliptic, in an electromagnetic PIC type code. The algorithm prevents large violations of Gauss' law by diffusing away numerical errors arising from the particle-to-grid apportionment method. There are no restrictions on the manner in which charge and current densities are determined from the particle distribution. In particular, point particles and simple linear interpolation are used.