  We present a load balancing strategy for hybrid particle-mesh methods that is
based on domain decomposition and element-local time measurement. This new
strategy is compared to our previous approach, which assumes a constant
weighting factor for each particle to determine the computational load. The
timer-based load balancing is applied to a plasma expansion simulation. The
performance of the new algorithm is compared to results presented in the past
and a significant improvement in terms of computational efficiency is shown.
