Laser-Plasma Accelerator Workshop 2019

May 5 – 10, 2019
MedILS
Europe/Berlin timezone

A three-dimensional ponderomotive guiding center solver in Osiris

May 6, 2019, 6:50 PM
20m
Meeting Room (MedILS)

Meeting Room

MedILS

Oral Contribution

Speaker

Anton Helm (Inst Superior Tecnico (IST))

Description

Particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations play a major role to the development of laser-wakefield acceleration (LWFA). Although PIC simulations provide quantitative predictions, that can be directly compared with experimental results, they are also very computationally intensive. Full scale 3d PIC simulations of LWFA are challenging due to the large-scale disparity between the laser wavelength $\lambda_0$, which is in $\mu\text{m}$-range, and the acceleration distance, which can exceed the m-range. Since the work of Gordon et al. [1], the ponderomotive guiding center (PGC) solver is a promising candidate to bridge the scale disparity. By advancing the laser envelope rather than the fields of a laser pulse a speedup of $\sim\left(\lambda_p/\lambda_0\right)^2$ can be achieved where $\lambda_p$ is the plasma skin depth. Here, we discuss our implementation of a PGC solver [2] into OSIRIS [3] which includes cylindrical, 3d cartesian coordinates and full ionization support. The discussion includes 3d parametric studies for beam properties for downramp injection cases and the usage of external magnetic quadrupoles for shaping beams in LWFA cases. We also present ionization seeding of a self-modulation instability for the full 10 m experimental realization of the AWAKE experiment [4].

Reference:
[1] D. F. Gordon et al., IEEE Trans. Plasma Scii., 28(4), 1135 (2000)
[2] A. Helm et al. to be submitted J. Comput. Phys.
[3] R. A. Fonseca et. al., Lect. Notes Comp. Sci., 2331, 343 (2002)
[4] E. Adli et. al., Nature 561, 363–367 (2018)

Working group Theory and computation

Primary author

Anton Helm (Inst Superior Tecnico (IST))

Co-authors

Jorge Vieira (Instituto Superior Técnico) Prof. Ricardo Fonseca (GoLP/IPFN Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal | ISCTE - Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), Lisboa, Portugal) Prof. Luis Silva (GoLP/IPFN Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal)