  The dynamics of temporally modulated plasma boundary sheaths is studied in
the intermediate radio frequency regime where the applied radio frequency and
the ion plasma frequency are comparable. Two kinetic simulation codes are
employed and their results are compared. The first code is a realization of the
well-known scheme, Particle-In-Cell with Monte Carlo collisions (PIC/MCC) and
simulates the entire discharge, a planar radio frequency capacitively coupled
plasma (RF-CCP) with an additional heating source. The second code is based on
the recently published scheme Ensemble-in-Spacetime (EST); it resolves only the
sheath and requires the time resolved voltage across and the ion flux into the
sheath as input. Ion inertia causes a temporal asymmetry (hysteresis) of the
sheath charge-voltage relation; also other ion transit time effects are found.
The two codes are in good agreement, both with respect to the spatial and
temporal dynamics of the sheath and with respect to the ion energy
distributions at the electrodes. It is concluded that the EST scheme may serve
as an efficient post-processor for fluid or global simulations and for
measurements: It can rapidly and accurately calculate ion distribution
functions even when no genuine kinetic information is available.
