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Title: Elimination of numerical Cherenkov instability in flowing-plasma particle-in-cell simulations by using Galilean coordinates

Journal Article · · Physical Review E
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [2];  [1]
  1. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
  2. Univ. of Hamburg, Hamburg (Germany)
  3. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations

Particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations of relativistic flowing plasmas are of key interest to several fields of physics (including, e.g., laser-wakefield acceleration, when viewed in a Lorentz-boosted frame) but remain sometimes infeasible due to the well-known numerical Cherenkov instability (NCI). In this article, we show that, for a plasma drifting at a uniform relativistic velocity, the NCI can be eliminated by simply integrating the PIC equations in Galilean coordinates that follow the plasma (also sometimes known as comoving coordinates) within a spectral analytical framework. The elimination of the NCI is verified empirically and confirmed by a theoretical analysis of the instability. Moreover, it is shown that this method is applicable both to Cartesian geometry and to cylindrical geometry with azimuthal Fourier decomposition.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1398439
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1332030
Journal Information:
Physical Review E, Vol. 94, Issue 5; ISSN 2470-0045
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 23 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (5)

Accurate modeling of plasma acceleration with arbitrary order pseudo-spectral particle-in-cell methods journal March 2017
Efficient start-to-end 3D envelope modeling for two-stage laser wakefield acceleration experiments journal October 2019
Numerical studies on electron beam quality optimization in a laser-driven plasma accelerator with external injection at SINBAD for ATHENA e journal November 2019
Numerical Studies on Electron Beam Quality Optimization in a Laser-Driven Plasma Accelerator with External Injection at SINBAD for ATHENA text January 2019
Numerical Studies on Electron Beam Quality Optimization in a Laser-Driven Plasma Accelerator with External Injection at SINBAD for ATHENAe text January 2019

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