Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This paper introduces a novel ray-tracing methodology for various gradient-index materials, particularly plasmas. The proposed approach utilizes adaptive-step Runge–Kutta integration to compute ray trajectories while incorporating an innovative rasterization step for ray energy deposition. By removing the requirement for rays to terminate at cell interfaces – a limitation inherent in earlier cell-confined approaches – the numerical formulation of ray motion becomes independent of specific domain geometries. This facilitates a unified and concise tracing method compatible with all commonly used curvilinear coordinate systems in laser–plasma simulations, which were previously unsupported or prohibitively complex under cell-confined frameworks. Numerical experiments demonstrate the algorithm’s stability and versatility in capturing diverse ray physics across reduced-dimensional planar, cylindrical and spherical coordinate systems. We anticipate that the rasterization-based approach will pave the way for the development of a generalized ray-tracing toolkit applicable to a broad range of fluid simulations and synthetic optical diagnostics.
DOI: 10.1017/hpl.2025.22
Authors: Tao Tao, Zhujun Li, Kejian Qian, Xian Jiang, Guannan Zheng, Rui Yan, Haoran Liu, Qing Jia, Jun Li, Hang Ding, Jian Zheng
Language: English
Subfield: Nuclear and High Energy Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,900
OpenAlex ID: W4411396357