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Improved modellisation of laser–particle interaction in particle-in-cell simulations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2023

Pierre-Louis Bourgeois Open the ORCID record for Pierre-Louis Bourgeois [Opens in a new window]  and
Xavier Davoine
Pierre-Louis Bourgeois*
Affiliation:
CEA, DAM, DIF, 91297 Arpajon, France LCPMR – UMR 7614 – CNRS/Sorbonne-Université, 75252 Paris CEDEX 05, France
Xavier Davoine
Affiliation:
CEA, DAM, DIF, 91297 Arpajon, France Université Paris-Saclay, CEA, LMCE, 91680 Bruyères-le-Châtel, France
*
†Email address for correspondence: pierre-louis.bourgeois@sorbonne-universite.fr
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Abstract

A new method named B-TIS (Bourgeois & Davoine, J. Comput. Phys., vol. 413, 2020, 109426) has recently been proposed for suppressing the influence of numerical Cherenkov radiation that appears in particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation of laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA). However, while this method provides good results when applied to the already accelerated electrons, we show here that it cannot model correctly most of the plasma electron bulk interacting with the laser field. We thus investigate in this paper the origins of this limitation and propose an improved method for which this limitation is removed. This new method, named B-TIS3, can now be applied to a much broader variety of problems and improve the performance in comparison with the standard PIC algorithm. We show that, for an electron interacting directly with a laser pulse, this new technique offers greater accuracy in terms of momentum and motion than the conventional scheme used in many PIC codes. These improvements translate into more faithful energy spectrum and electric charge for the accelerated beam in simulations of vacuum laser acceleration (VLA) or LWFA involving direct laser acceleration (DLA) at low plasma density. This new method, easy to implement and not computationally demanding, should then prove useful to study in depth and help develop novel VLA, DLA and LWFA techniques.

Keywords

plasma simulationintense particle beams
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Plasma Physics , Volume 89 , Issue 2 , April 2023 , 905890206
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

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