Radiation post-processing in PIC codes

J. L. Martins; S. F. Martins; R. A. Fonseca; L. O. Silva

doi:10.1117/12.820736

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7 May 2009 Radiation post-processing in PIC codes

J. L. Martins; S. F. Martins; R. A. Fonseca; L. O. Silva

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Proceedings Volume 7359, Harnessing Relativistic Plasma Waves as Novel Radiation Sources from Terahertz to X-Rays and Beyond; 73590V (2009) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.820736
Event: SPIE Optics + Optoelectronics, 2009, Prague, Czech Republic

Abstract

In 3D simulations, PIC codes cannot resolve the radiation of short wavelength compared to the grid spacing, which raises challenges in multi-dimensional simulations because of memory constraints. However, in many plasma physics scenarios (e.g. laser wakefield acceleration) the radiation mechanisms can cover several orders of magnitude in energy/frequency (from the THz range, associated with transition radiation of relativistic electron beams, to gamma-rays, associated with the betatron radiation of self-injected electrons in the bubble or blow-out regime). We describe a massivelly parallel post-processing radiation diagnostic that takes the track information from 3D/2D particle-in-cell simulations and determines the full radiation spectrum of the corresponding particle( s). Benchmark examples with cyclotron/synchrotron radiation as well as betatron radiation are presented and compared with the analytical predictions. Special emphasis is given to the numerical properties of the diagnostic, in particular the resolution of the particle tracks, the diagnostic spectral and spatial resolutions, as well as the different aproximations on the numerical calculation of the radiation integral over the trajectory of the particles. We then use this diagnostic to probe different scenarios, taking advantage of the spatial, temporal and frequency resolved characteristics of the diagnostic.

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J. L. Martins, S. F. Martins, R. A. Fonseca, and L. O. Silva "Radiation post-processing in PIC codes", Proc. SPIE 7359, Harnessing Relativistic Plasma Waves as Novel Radiation Sources from Terahertz to X-Rays and Beyond, 73590V (7 May 2009); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.820736

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