A new fast and accurate kinetic code for the study of the low frequency dynamics in a magnetised plasma, driven by an electrostatic pump

This paper deals with the upgrade of a Vlasov-Maxwell kinetic code, which, although able to describe with high precision the electron and the ion dynamics in the (x, vx, vy) phase space, turns out to be exceedingly demanding in terms of run times. In the modified code, which is described here, the ions are treated kinetically, the electrons are attributed their E´B drift velocity, and the Maxwell equations for the electromagnetic components of the self-consistent fields are eliminated. The new code is faster up to a factor 100 and the results are accurately comparable to the ones of the fully kinetic program. It is therefore possible to use our model to investigate the interaction of electrostatic waves (specifically, ion Bernstein waves) with a magnetised plasma, considering actual experimental parameters.