The LisbOn KInetics Monte Carlo solver

Abstract

The LisbOn KInetics Monte Carlo (LoKI-MC) is an open-source simulation tool that solves the electron kinetics for low-temperature plasmas excited by uniform DC electric fields from different gas mixtures, using Monte Carlo techniques. Following the strategy and data organization of the LisbOn KInetics Boltzmann (LoKI-B) solver, the program easily addresses any complex mixture of atomic/molecular species, describing electron collisions with any target state (electronic, vibrational and rotational), characterized by any user-prescribed population. LoKI-MC is written in C++, benefiting from a highly-efficient object-oriented structure. On input, the code requires the working conditions, the gas-mixture composition, the distributions of populations for the levels of the atomic/molecular gases considered, and the relevant sets of electron-scattering cross sections obtained from the open-access website LXCat. On output, it yields the electron energy and velocity distribution functions, the electron swarm parameters, the collision rate-coefficients, and the electron power absorbed from the electric field and transferred to the different collisional channels. This paper presents LoKI-MC and gives examples of results obtained for different model and real gases, verifying and benchmarking the simulation tool against analytical solutions and other available codes, and assesses its computational performance. Moreover, the effects of the gas temperature, anisotropic ionization scattering (induced by momentum conservation) and superelastic collisions are analyzed in real gases.