A higher order moment preserving reduction scheme for the Stochastic Weighted Particle Method

Abstract: The Stochastic Weighted Particle Method (SWPM) is a Monte Carlo technique developed by Rjasanow and Wagner that generalizes Bird's Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method for solving the Boltzmann equation. To reduce computational cost due to the gradual increase in the number of stochastic particles in the SWPM, Rjasanow and Wagner proposed several particle reduction schemes designed to preserve specified moments of the velocity distribution. Here, we introduce an improved particle reduction scheme that preserves all moments of the velocity distribution up to the second order, as well as the raw and central heat flux both within each group of particles to be reduced and for the entire system. Furthermore, we demonstrate that with the new reduction scheme the scalar fourth-order moment can be computed more accurately at a reduced computational cost.