51 research outputs found
Mitigation of numerical Cerenkov radiation and instability using a hybrid finite difference-FFT Maxwell solver and a local charge conserving current deposit
A hybrid Maxwell solver for fully relativistic and electromagnetic (EM)
particle-in-cell (PIC) codes is described. In this solver, the EM fields are
solved in space by performing an FFT in one direction, while using finite
difference operators in the other direction(s). This solver eliminates the
numerical Cerenkov radiation for particles moving in the preferred direction.
Moreover, the numerical Cerenkov instability (NCI) induced by the
relativistically drifting plasma and beam can be eliminated using this hybrid
solver by applying strategies that are similar to those recently developed for
pure FFT solvers. A current correction is applied for the charge conserving
current deposit to correctly account for the EM calculation in hybrid Yee-FFT
solver. A theoretical analysis of the dispersion properties in vacuum and in a
drifting plasma for the hybrid solver is presented, and compared with PIC
simulations with good agreement obtained. This hybrid solver is applied to both
2D and 3D Cartesian and quasi-3D (in which the fields and current are
decomposed into azimuthal harmonics) geometries. Illustrative results for laser
wakefield accelerator simulation in a Lorentz boosted frame using the hybrid
solver in the 2D Cartesian geometry are presented, and compared against results
from 2D UPIC-EMMA simulation which uses a pure spectral Maxwell solver, and
from OSIRIS 2D lab frame simulation using the standard Yee solver. Very good
agreement is obtained which demonstrates the feasibility of using the hybrid
solver for high fidelity simulation of relativistically drifting plasma with no
evidence of the numerical Cerenkov instability
Implementation of a hybrid particle code with a PIC description in r-z and a gridless description in phi into OSIRIS
For many plasma physics problems, three-dimensional and kinetic effects are very important. However, such simulations are very computationally intensive. Fortunately, there is a class of problems for which there is nearly azimuthal symmetry and the dominant three-dimensional physics is captured by the inclusion of only a few azimuthal harmonics. Recently, it was proposed [1] to model one such problem, laser wakefield acceleration, by expanding the fields and currents in azimuthal harmonics and truncating the expansion. The complex amplitudes of the fundamental and first harmonic for the fields were solved on an r–z grid and a procedure for calculating the complex current amplitudes for each particle based on its motion in Cartesian geometry was presented using a Marder's correction to maintain the validity of Gauss's law. In this paper, we describe an implementation of this algorithm into OSIRIS using a rigorous charge conserving current deposition method to maintain the validity of Gauss's law. We show that this algorithm is a hybrid method which uses a particles-in-cell description in r–z and a gridless description in ?. We include the ability to keep an arbitrary number of harmonics and higher order particle shapes. Examples for laser wakefield acceleration, plasma wakefield acceleration, and beam loading are also presented and directions for future work are discussed.info:eu-repo/semantics/submittedVersio
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