ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we shall use the problem of simulating electrostatic waves in a collisionless plasma to introduce the basic elements of the particle-mesh (PM) scheme and to illustrate the process of designing simulation models. The steps we shall go through follow those shown in Fig. 1-1, although we shall leave consideration of the simulation program until the next chapter. The PM scheme we shall obtain is the one-dimensional NGP scheme. Generalizations of this basic scheme, together with detailed analyses of the properties of the PM simulation model, are given in Chapters 5 and 7.
