Particle-in-cell simulations of plasma accelerators and electron-neutral collisions

David L. Bruhwiler; Rodolfo E. Giacone; John R. Cary; John P. Verboncoeur; Peter Mardahl; Eric Esarey; W. P. Leemans; B. A. Shadwick

doi:10.1103/PhysRevSTAB.4.101302

Open Access

Particle-in-cell simulations of plasma accelerators and electron-neutral collisions

David L. Bruhwiler, Rodolfo E. Giacone, John R. Cary, John P. Verboncoeur, Peter Mardahl, Eric Esarey, W. P. Leemans, and B. A. Shadwick

Phys. Rev. ST Accel. Beams 4, 101302 – Published 30 October 2001

Abstract

We present 2D simulations of both beam-driven and laser-driven plasma wakefield accelerators, using the object-oriented particle-in-cell code XOOPIC, which is time explicit, fully electromagnetic, and capable of running on massively parallel supercomputers. Simulations of laser-driven wakefields with low $$\sim 10^{16} W / {cm}^{2} $$ and high $$\sim 10^{18} W / {cm}^{2} $$ peak intensity laser pulses are conducted in slab geometry, showing agreement with theory and fluid simulations. Simulations of the E-157 beam wakefield experiment at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, in which a 30 GeV electron beam passes through 1 m of preionized lithium plasma, are conducted in cylindrical geometry, obtaining good agreement with previous work. We briefly describe some of the more significant modifications to XOOPIC required by this work, and summarize the issues relevant to modeling relativistic electron-neutral collisions in a particle-in-cell code.

Received 5 March 2001

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevSTAB.4.101302

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Authors & Affiliations

David L. Bruhwiler¹, Rodolfo E. Giacone², John R. Cary^1,2, John P. Verboncoeur³, Peter Mardahl³, Eric Esarey⁴, W. P. Leemans⁴, and B. A. Shadwick^4,5

¹Tech-X Corporation, 5541 Central Avenue, Suite 135, Boulder, Colorado 80301
²Physics Department, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0390
³EECS Department, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720-1770
⁴Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720
⁵Institute for Advanced Physics, 10875 U.S. Highway 285, Suite 199, Conifer, Colorado 80433