An \mathcal{O}(N) Maxwell solver with improved numerical dispersion properties

Abstract: A Maxwell solver derived from finite element method with \mathcal{O}(N) computing cost is developed to improve the numerical dispersion properties in relativistic particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations. The correction of the dispersion relation of the electromagnetic wave is achieved using the neighboring cells via an iteration scheme without decomposing into Fourier modes. The local nature of the communication is ideally suited to massively parallel computer architectures. This Maxwell solver constrains the Numerical Cherenkov instability (NCI) for the ultra-relativistic drifting pair plasma in x direction to large wave vectors for two dimensional grid. The growth rate of NCI is suppressed by using the low pass filtering.