PDRK: A General Kinetic Dispersion Relation Solver for Magnetized Plasma

A general, fast, and effective approach is developed for numerical calculation of kinetic plasma linear dispersion relations. The plasma dispersion function is approximated by J-pole expansion. Subsequently, the dispersion relation is transformed to a standard matrix eigenvalue problem of an equivalent linear system. Numerical solutions for the least damped or fastest growing modes using an 8-pole expansion are generally accurate; more strongly damped modes are less accurate, but are less likely to be of physical interest. In contrast to conventional approaches, such as Newton’s iterative method, this approach can give either all the solutions in the system or a few solutions around the initial guess. It is also free from convergence problems. The approach is demonstrated for electrostatic dispersion equations with one-dimensional and two-dimensional wavevectors, and for electromagnetic kinetic magnetized plasma dispersion relation for bi-Maxwellian distribution with relative parallel velocity flows between species.