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Computationally efficient methods for modelling laser wakefield acceleration in the blowout regime

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2012

B. M. COWAN ,
S. Y. KALMYKOV ,
A. BECK ,
X. DAVOINE ,
K. BUNKERS ,
A. F. LIFSCHITZ ,
E. LEFEBVRE ,
D. L. BRUHWILER ,
B. A. SHADWICK  and
D. P. UMSTADTER
B. M. COWAN
Affiliation:
Tech-X Corporation, 5621 Arapahoe Ave. Ste. A, Boulder, CO 80303, USA (benc@txcorp.com)
S. Y. KALMYKOV
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nebraska – Lincoln, NE 68588-0299, USA
A. BECK
Affiliation:
CEA, DAM, DIF, Arpajon F-91297, France Centrum voor Plasma-Astrofysica, Departement Wiskunde, KU Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200B, B-3001 Leuven, Belgium
X. DAVOINE
Affiliation:
CEA, DAM, DIF, Arpajon F-91297, France
K. BUNKERS
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nebraska – Lincoln, NE 68588-0299, USA
A. F. LIFSCHITZ
Affiliation:
Laboratoire d'Optique Appliquée, ENSTA, Ecole Polytechnique, CNRS, 91761 Palaiseau, France
E. LEFEBVRE
Affiliation:
CEA, DAM, DIF, Arpajon F-91297, France
D. L. BRUHWILER
Affiliation:
Tech-X Corporation, 5621 Arapahoe Ave. Ste. A, Boulder, CO 80303, USA (benc@txcorp.com)
B. A. SHADWICK
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nebraska – Lincoln, NE 68588-0299, USA
D. P. UMSTADTER
Affiliation:
Tech-X Corporation, 5621 Arapahoe Ave. Ste. A, Boulder, CO 80303, USA (benc@txcorp.com)
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Abstract

Electron self-injection and acceleration until dephasing in the blowout regime is studied for a set of initial conditions typical of recent experiments with 100-terawatt-class lasers. Two different approaches to computationally efficient, fully explicit, 3D particle-in-cell modelling are examined. First, the Cartesian code vorpal (Nieter, C. and Cary, J. R. 2004 VORPAL: a versatile plasma simulation code. J. Comput. Phys.196, 538) using a perfect-dispersion electromagnetic solver precisely describes the laser pulse and bubble dynamics, taking advantage of coarser resolution in the propagation direction, with a proportionally larger time step. Using third-order splines for macroparticles helps suppress the sampling noise while keeping the usage of computational resources modest. The second way to reduce the simulation load is using reduced-geometry codes. In our case, the quasi-cylindrical code calder-circ (Lifschitz, A. F. et al. 2009 Particle-in-cell modelling of laser-plasma interaction using Fourier decomposition. J. Comput. Phys.228(5), 1803–1814) uses decomposition of fields and currents into a set of poloidal modes, while the macroparticles move in the Cartesian 3D space. Cylindrical symmetry of the interaction allows using just two modes, reducing the computational load to roughly that of a planar Cartesian simulation while preserving the 3D nature of the interaction. This significant economy of resources allows using fine resolution in the direction of propagation and a small time step, making numerical dispersion vanishingly small, together with a large number of particles per cell, enabling good particle statistics. Quantitative agreement of two simulations indicates that these are free of numerical artefacts. Both approaches thus retrieve the physically correct evolution of the plasma bubble, recovering the intrinsic connection of electron self-injection to the nonlinear optical evolution of the driver.

Type
Papers
Information
Journal of Plasma Physics , Volume 78 , Special Issue 4: Progress in Laser Acceleration of Particles , August 2012 , pp. 469 - 482
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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