  The electron component of an ultracold neutral plasma (UCP) is modeled based
on a scalable method using a self-consistently determined mean-field
approximation. Representative sampling of discrete electrons within the UCP are
used to project the electron spatial distribution onto an expansion of
orthogonal basis functions. A collision operator acting on the sample electrons
is employed in order to drive the distribution toward thermal equilibrium.
These equilibrium distributions can be determined for non-zero electron
temperatures even in the presence of spherical symmetry-breaking applied
electric fields. This is useful for predicting key macroscopic UCP parameters,
such as the depth of the electrons' confining potential. Dynamics such as
electron oscillations in UCPs with non-uniform density distributions can also
be treated by this model.
