A ponderomotive guiding center particle-in-cell code for efficient modeling of laser-plasma interactions

Gordon, Daniel; Mori, W. B.; Antonsen, Thomas M.

doi:10.1109/27.893300

Cited by 78 publications

(77 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…As the envelope algorithm is described in detail in [10,13,12], we only summarize it here. The laser envelope model consists of the electromagnetic fields and particles of standard PIC along with a complex scalar field a which represents the envelope modulating the oscillation of the transverse vector potential of the laser field.…”

Section: Description Of the Algorithmmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The numerical procedure for the paricle push is described in [10]. The electromagnetic fields are updated and the particles deposited as in standard PIC.…”

Section: Description Of the Algorithmmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In order to overcome the disparities in length scale, an algorithm was proposed which models not the fast laser oscillation itself, but the slowly-varying envelope modulating the fast sinusoidal oscillation [10]. Removing the need to resolve the laser wavelength allows for larger grid spacings and thus larger timesteps as well.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Laser wakefield simulation using a speed-of-light frame envelope model

Cowan¹,

Bruhwiler²,

Cormier‐Michel³

et al. 2009

AIP Conference Proceedings

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Abstract. Simulation of laser wakefield accelerator (LWFA) experiments is computationally intensive due to the disparate length scales involved. Current experiments extend hundreds of laser wavelengths transversely and many thousands in the propagation direction, making explicit PIC simulations enormously expensive and requiring massively parallel execution in 3D. We can substantially improve the performance of laser wakefield simulations by modeling the envelope modulation of the laser field rather than the field itself. This allows for much coarser grids, since we need only resolve the plasma wavelength and not the laser wavelength, and therefore larger timesteps. Thus an envelope model can result in savings of several orders of magnitude in computational resources. By propagating the laser envelope in a frame moving at the speed of light, dispersive errors can be avoided and simulations over long distances become possible. Here we describe the model and its implementation, and show simulations and benchmarking of laser wakefield phenomena such as channel propagation, self-focusing, wakefield generation, and downramp injection using the model.

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Section: Description Of the Algorithmmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The numerical procedure for the paricle push is described in [10]. The electromagnetic fields are updated and the particles deposited as in standard PIC.…”

Section: Description Of the Algorithmmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Laser wakefield simulation using a speed-of-light frame envelope model

Cowan¹,

Bruhwiler²,

Cormier‐Michel³

et al. 2009

AIP Conference Proceedings

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Dephasing plays a key role in determining the optimal stage length in highenergy LPA collider designs [9] and is sensitively dependent on the laser pulse group velocity, and hence dispersion. Significant theoretical and computational work has gone into LPA stage simulations, and has led to the development of new algorithms [10][11][12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Generalized algorithm for control of numerical dispersion in explicit time-domain electromagnetic simulations

Cowan

Bruhwiler

Cary

et al. 2013

Phys. Rev. ST Accel. Beams

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We describe a modification to the finite-difference time-domain algorithm for electromagnetics on a Cartesian grid which eliminates numerical dispersion error in vacuum for waves propagating along a grid axis. We provide details of the algorithm, which generalizes previous work by allowing 3D operation with a wide choice of aspect ratio, and give conditions to eliminate dispersive errors along one or more of the coordinate axes. We discuss the algorithm in the context of laser-plasma acceleration simulation, showing significant reduction-up to a factor of 280, at a plasma density of 10 23 m À3 -of the dispersion error of a linear laser pulse in a plasma channel. We then compare the new algorithm with the standard electromagnetic update for laser-plasma accelerator stage simulations, demonstrating that by controlling numerical dispersion, the new algorithm allows more accurate simulation than is otherwise obtained. We also show that the algorithm can be used to overcome the critical but difficult challenge of consistent initialization of a relativistic particle beam and its fields in an accelerator simulation.

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“…While both plasma wavelength and total length of the plasma need to be increased as we wish to increase the beam energy gain, the laser wavelength stays fixed to 1 µm. Reduced models are used to overcome this issue, such as the Ponderomotive Guiding Center method [3,4,5,6,7] where the laser wavelength is not resolved and only the average ponderomotive force of the laser is modeled, and simulations in a boosted frame [8,9,10], where the simulation is done in a frame that moves at a relativistic velocity along with the laser pulse. Further challenge is to accurately simulate the electron beam properties as numerical noise accumulates in particle-in-cell simulations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Low noise particle-in-cell simulations of 10 GeV laser-plasma accelerator stages

Cormier‐Michel¹,

Bruhwiler²,

Hallman³

et al. 2013

AIP Conference Proceedings

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Abstract. Because of their ultra-high accelerating gradient, laser plasma based accelerators (LPA) are contemplated for the next generation of high-energy colliders and light sources. The upcoming BELLA project will explore acceleration of electron bunches to 10 GeV in a 1 meter long plasma, where a wakefield is driven by a PW-class laser. Particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations are used to design LPA stages relevant to the upcoming experiments. Simulations in a Lorentz boosted frame are used to gain significant speed up and to simulate the 10 GeV stages at full scale parameters, otherwise impractical. As criteria on energy spread and beam emittance become more stringent, PIC simulations become more challenging as high frequency noise artificially increases those quantities. To reduce numerical noise, we consider using a Poisson solve to calculate the beam self-fields. This method allows correct cancelation of the beam transverse self-forces and prevents artificial emittance growth for a matched beam in a linear focusing field.

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A ponderomotive guiding center particle-in-cell code for efficient modeling of laser-plasma interactions

Cited by 78 publications

References 15 publications

Laser wakefield simulation using a speed-of-light frame envelope model

Laser wakefield simulation using a speed-of-light frame envelope model

Generalized algorithm for control of numerical dispersion in explicit time-domain electromagnetic simulations

Low noise particle-in-cell simulations of 10 GeV laser-plasma accelerator stages

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