A numerical instability in an ADI algorithm for gyrokinetics

We explore the implementation of an Alternating Direction Implicit (ADI) algorithm for a gyrokinetic plasma problem and its resulting numerical stability properties. This algorithm, which uses a standard ADI scheme to divide the field solve from the particle distribution function advance, has previously been found to work well for certain plasma kinetic problems involving 1 spatial and 2 velocity dimensions, including collisions and an electric field. However, for the gyrokinetic problem we find a severe stability restriction on the time step. Furthermore, we find that this numerical instability limitation also affects some other algorithms, such as a partially implicit Adams-Bashforth algorithm, where the parallel motion operator v∥∂/∂z is treated implicitly and the field terms are treated with an Adams-Bashforth explicit scheme. Fully explicit algorithms applied to all terms can be better at long wavelengths than these ADI or partially implicit algorithms.