High order maximum principle preserving semi-Lagrangian finite difference WENO schemes for the Vlasov equation

In this paper, we propose the parametrized maximum principle preserving (MPP) flux limiter, originally developed in [37], to the semi-Lagrangian finite difference weighted essentially non-oscillatory scheme for solving the Vlasov equation. The MPP flux limiter is proved to maintain up to fourth order accuracy for the semi-Lagrangian finite difference scheme without any time step restriction. Numerical studies on the Vlasov-Poisson system demonstrate the performance of the proposed method and its ability in preserving the positivity of the probability distribution function while maintaining the high order accuracy. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.