Particle integrator for particle-in-cell simulations of ultra-high intensity laser-plasma interactions
Plasma Physics
2021-04-07 v1 Computational Physics
Abstract
Particle-in-cell codes are the most widely used simulation tools for kinetic studies of ultra-intense laser-plasma interactions. Using the motion of a single electron in a plane electromagnetic wave as a benchmark problem, we show surprising deterioration of the numerical accuracy of the PIC algorithm with increasing normalized wave amplitude for typical time-step and grid sizes. Two significant sources of errors are identified: strong acceleration near stopping points and the temporal field interpolation. We propose adaptive electron sub-cycling coupled with a third order temporal interpolation of the magnetic field and electric field as an efficient remedy that dramatically improves the accuracy of the particle integrator.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2102.10983,
title = {Particle integrator for particle-in-cell simulations of ultra-high intensity laser-plasma interactions},
author = {Kavin Tangtartharakul and Guangye Chen and Alexey Arefiev},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2102.10983},
year = {2021}
}