One-to-one full-scale simulations of laser-wakefield acceleration using QuickPIC

• Autor(a) principal: Vieira, J.
• Data de Publicação: 2008
• Outros Autores: Fiuza, F., Fonseca, R. A., Silva, L. O., Huang, C. K., Lu, W., Tzoufras, M., Tsung, F. S., Decyk, V. K., Mori, W. B., Cooley, J., Antonsen Jr., T.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://ciencia.iscte-iul.pt/id/ci-pub-36844; http://hdl.handle.net/10071/14214
• topic: Electron accelerators; Lasers; Plasma waves; Simulation

We use the quasi-static particle-in-cell (PIC) code QuickPIC to perform full-scale one-to-one laser-waketield acceleration (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 similar to 10-J laser pulses, showing that, by using 10-cm-scale plasma channels, it is possible to accelerate electrons to more than 4 GeV. A comparison between QuickPIC and 2-D OSIRIS is provided. Good qualitative agreement between the two codes is found, but the 2-D full PIC simulations fail to predict the correct laser and wakefield amplitudes.