Year: 2021
Type: article
Abstract: An extended thermal particle boundary condition is devised to more efficiently and accurately model laser–plasma interactions in overdense plasmas. Particle-in-cell simulations of such interactions require many particles per cell, and a large region of background plasma is often necessary to correctly mimic a semi-infinite plasma and avoid electron refluxing from a truncated plasma. For long-pulse lasers of many picoseconds, such constraints can become prohibitively expensive. Here, an extended particle boundary condition (absorber) is designed that instantaneously stops and re-emits energetic particles streaming toward the simulation boundary over a defined region, allowing sufficient time and space for a suitably cool return current to develop in the background plasma. Tunable parameters of the absorber are explained, and simulations using the absorber with a 3-ps laser are shown to accurately reproduce those of a causally separated boundary while requiring only 20% the number of particles.
Source: Physics of Plasmas
DOI: 10.1063/5.0065232
Language: English
Subfield: Nuclear and High Energy Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
Awards: G1088636562, G1356433355, G14554683, G1806365414, G1984347537, G2145270357, Continuation of Three-Dimensional Numerical Experiments on High-Intensity Particle and Laser Beam-Matter Interactions, G3935573023, G4744444288, CONTINUATION OF THE APPLICATION OF PARALLEL KINETIC SIMULATIONS TO LASER AND ELECTRON TRANSPORT THROUGH PLASMAS UNDER CONDITIONS RELEVANT TO ICF AND HEDS, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO
CENTER FOR MATTER UNDER EXTREME CONDITIONS
MOD 0000 FULLY FUNDS NEW RESEARCH GRANT., G5957427626, G991281326
OpenAlex ID: W3188634400