The finite volume wave propagation method and the finite element Runge-Kutta discontinuous Galerkin (RKDG) method are studied for applications to balance laws describing plasma fluids. The plasma fluid equations explored are dispersive and not dissipative. The physical dispersion introduced through the source terms leads to the wide variety of plasma waves. The dispersive nature of the plasma fluid equations explored separates the work in this paper from previous publications. The linearized Euler equations with dispersive source terms are used as a model equation system to compare the wave propagation and RKDG methods. The numerical methods are then studied for applications of the full two-fluid plasma equations. The two-fluid equations describe the self-consistent evolution of electron and ion fluids in the presence of electromagnetic fields. It is found that the wave propagation method, when run at a CFL number of 1, is more accurate for equation systems that do not have disparate characteristic speeds. However, if the oscillation frequency is large compared to the frequency of information propagation, source splitting in the wave propagation method may cause phase errors. The Runge-Kutta discontinuous Galerkin method providesmore accurate results for problems near steady-state aswell as problems with disparate characteristic speeds when using higher spatial orders.

A discontinuous Galerkin method for the ideal 5 moment two-fluid plasma system is presented. The method uses a second or third order discontinuous Galerkin spatial discretization and a third order TVD Runge-Kutta time stepping scheme. The method is benchmarked against an analytic solution of a dispersive electron acoustic square pulse as well as the two-fluid electromagnetic shock [1] and existing numerical solutions to the GEM challenge magnetic reconnection problem [2]. The algorithm can be generalized to arbitrary geometries and three dimensions. An approach to maintaining small gauge errors based on error propagation is suggested.