One-to-one full scale simulations of laser wakefield acceleration using QuickPIC
Abstract
We use the quasi-static particle-in-cell code QuickPIC to perform full-scale, one-to-one LWFA numerical experiments, with parameters that closely follow current experimental conditions. The propagation of state-of-the-art laser pulses in both preformed and uniform plasma channels is examined. We show that the presence of the channel is important whenever the laser self-modulations do not dominate the propagation. We examine the acceleration of an externally injected electron beam in the wake generated by 10 J laser pulses, showing that by using ten-centimeter-scale plasma channels it is possible to accelerate electrons to more than 4 GeV. A comparison between QuickPIC and 2D OSIRIS is provided. Good qualitative agreement between the two codes is found, but the 2D full PIC simulations fail to predict the correct laser and wakefield amplitudes.
Cite
@article{arxiv.0806.3637,
title = {One-to-one full scale simulations of laser wakefield acceleration using QuickPIC},
author = {J. Vieira and F. Fiuza and R. A. Fonseca and L. O. Silva and C. Huang and W. Lu and M. Tzoufras and F. S. Tsung and V. Decyk and W. B. Mori and J. Cooley and T. Antonsen},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0806.3637},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
5 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication IEEE TPS, Special Issue - Laser & Plasma Accelerators - 8/2008