A small selection of what JC-PIC produces — phase-space and profile animations exported straight from the diagnostic viewers. Each comes from a bundled test case you can load and reproduce in a few clicks.
A beam injected into a vacuum gap above the space-charge limit forms a virtual cathode that, beyond a second threshold, begins to oscillate.
Electron phase space (x, vₓ). A beam injected above the space-charge limit builds a potential minimum that traps and reflects electrons, then oscillates.
The electrostatic potential profile evolving in a low-current thermionic discharge, where ionization is spatially separated from the emitter by an internal double layer.
In the temperature-limited mode, the beam accelerated across the cathode sheath drives a beam–plasma (Langmuir-wave) instability in the bulk.
Electron phase space in the temperature-limited mode: the cold sheath-accelerated beam destabilizes against the bulk and rolls up into phase-space holes.
A dilute, high-velocity electron beam interacting with a dense stationary background — the classic two-population kinetic instability, in clean periodic form.
The cleanest periodic-mode beam instabilities — the very phenomena one-dimensional PIC was first built to teach.
Two counter-streaming electron beams at ±v₀ through a neutralizing background. The free energy of their relative motion winds phase space into the iconic cat's-eye vortices.
The electric-field profile growing as a global electron drift destabilizes against the ions — the instability Buneman discovered in 1959.
These are just a handful of cases. The full case library spans RF discharges, striations, magnetized E×B plasmas and more — each with its own diagnostics. See the user manual for the viewers.
