Numerical schemes for multi-species BGK equations based on a variational procedure

Book excerpt: Many applications require reliable numerical simulations of realistic set-ups e.g. plasma physics. This book gives a short introduction into kinetic models of gas mixtures describing the time evolution of rarefied gases and plasmas. Recently developed models are presented which extend existing literature by including more physical phenomena. We develop a numerical scheme for these more elaborated equations. The scheme is proven to maintain the physical properties of the models at the discrete level. We show several numerical test cases inspired by physical experiments.