Particle-in-Cell modelling of laser–plasma interaction using Fourier decomposition

Agustin Lifschitz (1, 2) , X. Davoine (3) , E. Lefebvre (3) , Jérôme Faure (2) , Clément Rechatin (2) , Victor Malka (2)

1 LPGP - Laboratoire de physique des gaz et des plasmas
2 LOA - Laboratoire d'optique appliquée
3 DPTA - Département de Physique Théorique et Appliquée

A new Particle-in-Cell code developed for the modelling of laser–plasma interaction is presented. The code solves Maxwell equations using Fourier expansion along the poloidal direction with respect to the laser propagation axis. The goal of the code is to provide a three-dimensional description of the laser–plasma interaction in underdense plasmas with computational load similar to bidimensional calculations. Code results are successfully compared with three-dimensional calculations.

Keywords: Laser–plasma acceleration; Particle-in-Cell simulations; Numerical methods

Domains: Physics [physics]; Physics [physics]; Computational Physics [physics.comp-ph]

Agustin Lifschitz, X. Davoine, E. Lefebvre, Jérôme Faure, Clément Rechatin, et al.. Particle-in-Cell modelling of laser–plasma interaction using Fourier decomposition. Journal of Computational Physics, 2008, 228 (5), pp.1803-1814. ⟨10.1016/j.jcp.2008.11.017⟩. ⟨hal-00576913⟩