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Field Interpolation

A robust field interpolation is the prerequisite for pushing particles. This example demonstrates the construction of scalar/vector field interpolators for Cartesian/Spherical grids. If the field is analytic, you can directly pass the generated function to prepare.

julia
import TestParticle as TP
using StaticArrays
using Chairmarks

function setup_spherical_field()
   r = logrange(0.1, 10.0, length = 16)
   r_uniform = range(0.1, 10.0, length = 16)
   θ = range(0, π, length = 16)
   ϕ = range(0, , length = 16)

   B₀ = 1e-8 # [nT]
   B = zeros(3, length(r), length(θ), length(ϕ)) # vector
   A = zeros(length(r), length(θ), length(ϕ)) # scalar

   for (iθ, θ_val) in enumerate(θ)
      sinθ, cosθ = sincos(θ_val)
      B[1, :, iθ, :] .= B₀ * cosθ
      B[2, :, iθ, :] .= -B₀ * sinθ
      A[:, iθ, :] .= B₀ * sinθ
   end

   B_field_nu = TP.build_interpolator(TP.StructuredGrid, B, r, θ, ϕ)
   A_field_nu = TP.build_interpolator(TP.StructuredGrid, A, r, θ, ϕ)
   B_field = TP.build_interpolator(TP.StructuredGrid, B, r_uniform, θ, ϕ)
   A_field = TP.build_interpolator(TP.StructuredGrid, A, r_uniform, θ, ϕ)

   return B_field_nu, A_field_nu, B_field, A_field
end

function setup_cartesian_field()
   x = range(-10, 10, length = 16)
   y = range(-10, 10, length = 16)
   z = range(-10, 10, length = 16)
   B = zeros(3, length(x), length(y), length(z)) # vector
   B[3, :, :, :] .= 10e-9
   A = zeros(length(x), length(y), length(z)) # scalar
   A[:, :, :] .= 10e-9

   B_field = TP.build_interpolator(B, x, y, z)
   A_field = TP.build_interpolator(A, x, y, z)

   return B_field, A_field
end

function setup_cartesian_nonuniform_field()
   x = logrange(0.1, 10.0, length = 16)
   y = range(-10, 10, length = 16)
   z = range(-10, 10, length = 16)
   B = zeros(3, length(x), length(y), length(z)) # vector
   B[3, :, :, :] .= 10e-9
   A = zeros(length(x), length(y), length(z)) # scalar
   A[:, :, :] .= 10e-9

   B_field = TP.build_interpolator(TP.RectilinearGrid, B, x, y, z)
   A_field = TP.build_interpolator(TP.RectilinearGrid, A, x, y, z)

   return B_field, A_field
end

function setup_time_dependent_field()
   x = range(-10, 10, length = 16)
   y = range(-10, 10, length = 16)
   z = range(-10, 10, length = 16)

   # Create two time snapshots
   B0 = zeros(3, length(x), length(y), length(z))
   B0[3, :, :, :] .= 1.0 # Bz = 1 at t=0

   B1 = zeros(3, length(x), length(y), length(z))
   B1[3, :, :, :] .= 2.0 # Bz = 2 at t=1

   times = [0.0, 1.0]

   function loader(i)
       if i == 1
           # For demonstration, we assume we load from disk here
           return TP.build_interpolator(TP.CartesianGrid, B0, x, y, z)
       elseif i == 2
           return TP.build_interpolator(TP.CartesianGrid, B1, x, y, z)
       else
           error("Index out of bounds")
       end
   end

   # B_field_t(x, t)
   B_field_t = TP.LazyTimeInterpolator(times, loader)

   return B_field_t
end

B_sph_nu, A_sph_nu, B_sph, A_sph = setup_spherical_field();
B_car, A_car = setup_cartesian_field();
B_car_nu, A_car_nu = setup_cartesian_nonuniform_field();
B_td = setup_time_dependent_field();
loc = SA[1.0, 1.0, 1.0];
3-element StaticArraysCore.SVector{3, Float64} with indices SOneTo(3):
 1.0
 1.0
 1.0

Gridded spherical interpolation

Input Location

For spherical data, the input location is still in Cartesian coordinates!

julia
julia> @be B_sph_nu($loc)
Benchmark: 3093 samples with 226 evaluations
 min    129.442 ns (2 allocs: 64 bytes)
 median 131.305 ns (2 allocs: 64 bytes)
 mean   133.212 ns (2 allocs: 64 bytes)
 max    299.186 ns (2 allocs: 64 bytes)

julia> @be A_sph_nu($loc)
Benchmark: 3134 samples with 288 evaluations
 min    100.778 ns (2 allocs: 48 bytes)
 median 102.448 ns (2 allocs: 48 bytes)
 mean   103.813 ns (2 allocs: 48 bytes)
 max    219.056 ns (2 allocs: 48 bytes)

Uniform spherical interpolation

julia
julia> @be B_sph($loc)
Benchmark: 3113 samples with 219 evaluations
 min    132.160 ns (2 allocs: 64 bytes)
 median 134.863 ns (2 allocs: 64 bytes)
 mean   136.892 ns (2 allocs: 64 bytes)
 max    372.566 ns (2 allocs: 64 bytes)

julia> @be A_sph($loc)
Benchmark: 3151 samples with 278 evaluations
 min    103.428 ns (2 allocs: 48 bytes)
 median 105.665 ns (2 allocs: 48 bytes)
 mean   107.137 ns (2 allocs: 48 bytes)
 max    205.633 ns (2 allocs: 48 bytes)

Uniform Cartesian interpolation

julia
julia> @be B_car($loc)
Benchmark: 3179 samples with 415 evaluations
 min    68.730 ns (2 allocs: 64 bytes)
 median 69.937 ns (2 allocs: 64 bytes)
 mean   70.924 ns (2 allocs: 64 bytes)
 max    170.366 ns (2 allocs: 64 bytes)

julia> @be A_car($loc)
Benchmark: 3191 samples with 439 evaluations
 min    65.269 ns (2 allocs: 48 bytes)
 median 66.754 ns (2 allocs: 48 bytes)
 mean   67.652 ns (2 allocs: 48 bytes)
 max    130.722 ns (2 allocs: 48 bytes)

Non-uniform Cartesian interpolation

julia
julia> @be B_car_nu($loc)
Benchmark: 2619 samples with 438 evaluations
 min    65.237 ns (2 allocs: 64 bytes)
 median 68.347 ns (2 allocs: 64 bytes)
 mean   81.642 ns (2 allocs: 64 bytes)
 max    609.790 ns (2 allocs: 64 bytes)

julia> @be A_car_nu($loc)
Benchmark: 3224 samples with 463 evaluations
 min    60.782 ns (2 allocs: 48 bytes)
 median 62.416 ns (2 allocs: 48 bytes)
 mean   63.313 ns (2 allocs: 48 bytes)
 max    176.933 ns (2 allocs: 48 bytes)

Based on the benchmarks, for the same grid size, gridded interpolation (StructuredGrid with non-uniform ranges, RectilinearGrid) is 2x slower than uniform mesh interpolation (StructuredGrid with uniform ranges, CartesianGrid).

Time-dependent field interpolation

For time-dependent fields, we can use LazyTimeInterpolator. It takes a list of time points and a loader function that returns a spatial interpolator for a given time index. The interpolator will linearly interpolate between the two nearest time points.

julia
julia> @be B_td($loc, 0.5)
Benchmark: 3122 samples with 141 evaluations
 min    205.915 ns (2 allocs: 64 bytes)
 median 209.184 ns (2 allocs: 64 bytes)
 mean   211.473 ns (2 allocs: 64 bytes)
 max    461.362 ns (2 allocs: 64 bytes)
TestParticle.build_interpolator Function
julia
build_interpolator(gridtype, A, grids..., order::Int=1, bc::Int=1)
build_interpolator(A, grids..., order::Int=1, bc::Int=1)

Return a function for interpolating field array A on the given grids.

Arguments

  • gridtype: CartesianGrid, RectilinearGrid or StructuredGrid. Usually determined by the number of grids.

  • A: field array. For vector field, the first dimension should be 3 if it's not an SVector wrapper.

  • order::Int=1: order of interpolation in [1,2,3].

  • bc::Int=1: type of boundary conditions, 1 -> NaN, 2 -> periodic, 3 -> Clamp (flat extrapolation).

Notes

The input array A may be modified in-place for memory optimization.

source
TestParticle.prepare Function
julia
prepare(args...; kwargs...) -> (q2m, m, E, B, F)
prepare(E, B, F = ZeroField(); kwargs...)
prepare(grid::CartesianGrid, E, B, F = ZeroField(); kwargs...)
prepare(x, E, B, F = ZeroField(); dir = 1, kwargs...)
prepare(x, y, E, B, F = ZeroField(); kwargs...)
prepare(x, y, z, E, B, F = ZeroField(); kwargs...)
prepare(B; E = ZeroField(), F = ZeroField(), kwargs...)

Return a tuple consists of particle charge-mass ratio for a prescribed species of charge q and mass m, mass m for a prescribed species, analytic/interpolated EM field functions, and external force F.

Prescribed species are Electron and Proton; other species can be manually specified with m and q keywords or species = Ion(m̄, q̄), where and are the mass and charge numbers respectively.

Direct range input for uniform grid in 1/2/3D is supported. The grid vectors must be sorted. For 1D grid, an additional keyword dir is used for specifying the spatial direction, 1 -> x, 2 -> y, 3 -> z. For 3D grid, the default grid type is CartesianGrid. To use StructuredGrid (spherical) grid, an additional keyword gridtype is needed. For StructuredGrid (spherical) grid, dimensions of field arrays should be (Br, Bθ, Bϕ).

Keywords

  • order::Int=1: order of interpolation in [1,2,3].

  • bc::Int=1: type of boundary conditions, 1 -> NaN, 2 -> periodic.

  • species=Proton: particle species.

  • q=nothing: particle charge.

  • m=nothing: particle mass.

  • gridtype: CartesianGrid, RectilinearGrid, StructuredGrid.

source