Publications

Hedging direct simulation Monte Carlo bets via event splitting

Oblapenko, G.; Goldstein, D.; Varghese, P.; Moore, C.

We propose a new scheme for simulation of collisions with multiple possible outcomes in variable-weight DSMC computations. The scheme is applied to a 0-D ionization rate coefficient computation, and 1-D electrical breakdown simulation. We show that the scheme offers a significant (up to an order of magnitude) improvement in the level of stochastic noise over the usual acceptance-rejection algorithm, even when controlling for the slight additional computational costs. The benefits and performance of the scheme are analyzed in detail, and possible extensions are proposed.