Multi-scale simulation of intense laser plasma interactions
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Warwick
Department Name: Physics
Abstract
The UK is at the forefront of high power laser-plasma research through the work of the Central Laser Facility, which has consistently received the highest praise at international review. The recently formed Collaborative Computational Project in plasma physics (CCPP) directs a substantial part of its research effort towards modelling laser-plasma interactions, driven particularly by the existing experimental programme at the CLF and the proposal to extend this to even higher intensities with the Vulcan 10PW project. Two extremely important new developments are the European HiPER project for a laser based inertial confinement fusion demonstrator and the rapidly emerging application of laser-plasmas to light source applications for ultra-short pulses in the X-ray and gamma-ray spectrum. Laboratory applications of ultra-high power laser-plasmas also include medical applications using radiation and particle beams for diagnosis and therapy and the extreme conditions in some of these plasmas serve as laboratory analogues for astrophysical objects.It is vital that computer codes are available to help progress these new developments in plasma physics. The physics accessed by these experiments is often non-linear, relativistic and couples across many orders of magnitude of scale lengths and time scales. To understand the experiments and help improve performance computational modelling is an indispensable tool. The ranges of length and time scales that are relevant to these highly dynamical plasmas make it difficult to model the whole problem with a single numerical technique. For instance, in the case of HiPER fusion targets, MHD fluid models are appropriate during the compression phase, while the ensuing heating and burn phases require detailed kinetic modelling and the transport of particles across a density range of four orders of magnitude. Experiments planned for the Vulcan 10PW laser will probe quantum electrodynamic (QED) phenomena at the scale of the electron Compton length while laboratory experiments on magnetic reconnection may involve lengths up to 1 cm. There is still no single method which is applicable to the entirety of circumstances of laser plasma experiments but the Particle in Cell method (PIC) is remarkably robust, immediately useful for many of the high intensity experiments, and has the potential to be extended at short length scales towards the quantum regime and also at long scales towards the fluid regime using methods which, while very different in terms of physics, are similar in terms of the computational requirements.This exploration of new regimes of plasma physics requires new software to be developed to include this new physics. This project will extend the current codes used for plasma simulations in several directions. They will be optimised to make use of the largest computers, using 1000's of processor on national supercomputing facilities. The codes will be extend to include particle collisions in a novel, and fast, way enabling the extension to longer lengths and time scales. Including QED effects will extend their applicability down to shorter scale lengths and more intense lasers. Radiation from individual electrons, including coherent radiation, will help probe the new regimes expected to deliver the next generation of short pulse light sources. Finally all of this will be combined into a single computational tool allowing UK plasma physicists to easily exploit the tools they need to understand the next generation of experiments and establish a world leading role for UK computational laser plasma physics to compliment it's already established reputation in experimental laser plasma science.
Organisations
Publications
Fasano N.M.
(2021)
High-Power Ultraviolet Vortex Beams Generated from a Relativistic Laser Interacting with an Ultrathin Foil
in 2021 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics, CLEO 2021 - Proceedings
Siminos E.
(2015)
Modeling few-cycle shadowgraphy of laser-wakefield accelerators
in 42nd European Physical Society Conference on Plasma Physics, EPS 2015
Zhang P
(2015)
Enhancement of high-order harmonic generation in intense laser interactions with solid density plasma by multiple reflections and harmonic amplification
in Applied Physics Letters
Gonzalez-Izquierdo B
(2018)
Radiation Pressure-Driven Plasma Surface Dynamics in Ultra-Intense Laser Pulse Interactions with Ultra-Thin Foils
in Applied Sciences
Thurgood J
(2015)
Self-consistent particle-in-cell simulations of fundamental and harmonic plasma radio emission mechanisms
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Graf Von Der Pahlen J
(2016)
Role of electron inertia and reconnection dynamics in a stressed X -point collapse with a guide-field
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Tsiklauri D
(2016)
Alfvén wave phase-mixing in flows Why over-dense, solar coronal, open magnetic field structures are cool
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Fasano N.M.
(2020)
Effects of Electron Bunch Width on the Efficiency of High-Order Harmonic Generation from Ultrathin Solid Targets
in Conference Proceedings - Lasers and Electro-Optics Society Annual Meeting-LEOS
Skender Marina
(2014)
Whistler wave generation by non-gyrotropic, relativistic, electron beams
in EGU General Assembly Conference Abstracts
Gonzalez-Izquierdo B
(2016)
Influence of laser polarization on collective electron dynamics in ultraintense laser-foil interactions
in High Power Laser Science and Engineering
Consoli F
(2020)
Laser produced electromagnetic pulses: generation, detection and mitigation
in High Power Laser Science and Engineering
Jarrett J
(2018)
Reflection of intense laser light from microstructured targets as a potential diagnostic of laser focus and plasma temperature
in High Power Laser Science and Engineering
Ridgers C
(2014)
Modelling gamma-ray photon emission and pair production in high-intensity laser-matter interactions
in Journal of Computational Physics
Varin C
(2016)
MeV femtosecond electron pulses from direct-field acceleration in low density atomic gases
in Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics
Marceau V
(2015)
Tunable high-repetition-rate femtosecond few-hundred keV electron source
in Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics
Dover N
(2016)
Optical shaping of gas targets for laser-plasma ion sources
in Journal of Plasma Physics
Turrell A
(2016)
Efficient evaluation of collisional energy transfer terms for plasma particle simulations
in Journal of Plasma Physics
Arefiev A
(2015)
Novel aspects of direct laser acceleration of relativistic electrons
in Journal of Plasma Physics
Thurgood J
(2016)
Particle-in-cell simulations of the relaxation of electron beams in inhomogeneous solar wind plasmas
in Journal of Plasma Physics
Tikhonchuk V
(2019)
Studies of laser-plasma interaction physics with low-density targets for direct-drive inertial confinement schemes
in Matter and Radiation at Extremes
Bacon E
(2022)
High order modes of intense second harmonic light produced from a plasma aperture
in Matter and Radiation at Extremes
Toncian T
(2016)
Non-Maxwellian electron distributions resulting from direct laser acceleration in near-critical plasmas
in Matter and Radiation at Extremes
Gonzalez-Izquierdo B
(2016)
Towards optical polarization control of laser-driven proton acceleration in foils undergoing relativistic transparency.
in Nature communications
Turrell AE
(2015)
Ultrafast collisional ion heating by electrostatic shocks.
in Nature communications
Higginson A
(2018)
Near-100 MeV protons via a laser-driven transparency-enhanced hybrid acceleration scheme.
in Nature communications
Thévenet M
(2015)
Vacuum laser acceleration of relativistic electrons using plasma mirror injectors
in Nature Physics
Gonzalez-Izquierdo B
(2016)
Optically controlled dense current structures driven by relativistic plasma aperture-induced diffraction
in Nature Physics
Capdessus R
(2020)
High-density electron-ion bunch formation and multi-GeV positron production via radiative trapping in extreme-intensity laser-plasma interactions
in New Journal of Physics
Powell H
(2015)
Proton acceleration enhanced by a plasma jet in expanding foils undergoing relativistic transparency
in New Journal of Physics
Gray R
(2014)
Azimuthal asymmetry in collective electron dynamics in relativistically transparent laser-foil interactions
in New Journal of Physics
Dieckmann M
(2014)
Evolution of slow electrostatic shock into a plasma shock mediated by electrostatic turbulence
in New Journal of Physics
Zhang P
(2015)
The effect of nonlinear quantum electrodynamics on relativistic transparency and laser absorption in ultra-relativistic plasmas
in New Journal of Physics
Scott G
(2015)
Optimization of plasma mirror reflectivity and optical quality using double laser pulses
in New Journal of Physics
Aurand B
(2013)
Radiation pressure-assisted acceleration of ions using multi-component foils in high-intensity laser-matter interactions
in New Journal of Physics
Goodman J
(2022)
Optimisation of multi-petawatt laser-driven proton acceleration in the relativistic transparency regime
in New Journal of Physics
Gray R
(2018)
Enhanced laser-energy coupling to dense plasmas driven by recirculating electron currents
in New Journal of Physics
Willingale L
(2018)
The unexpected role of evolving longitudinal electric fields in generating energetic electrons in relativistically transparent plasmas
in New Journal of Physics
Dolier E
(2022)
Multi-parameter Bayesian optimisation of laser-driven ion acceleration in particle-in-cell simulations
in New Journal of Physics
Scott G
(2017)
Diagnosis of Weibel instability evolution in the rear surface density scale lengths of laser solid interactions via proton acceleration
in New Journal of Physics
Gray R
(2014)
Laser pulse propagation and enhanced energy coupling to fast electrons in dense plasma gradients
in New Journal of Physics
Hussein A
(2021)
Towards the optimisation of direct laser acceleration
in New Journal of Physics
Pathak N
(2012)
Frequency shift of an intense laser pulse induced by plasma wave
in Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment
King M
(2016)
Ion acceleration and plasma jet formation in ultra-thin foils undergoing expansion and relativistic transparency
in Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment
Fasano N.M.
(2021)
High-power ultraviolet vortex beams generated from a relativistic laser interacting with an ultrathin foil
in Optics InfoBase Conference Papers
Yehuda H
(2021)
Annular coherent wake emission.
in Optics letters
Jiang Y
(2021)
Direct generation of relativistic isolated attosecond pulses in transmission from laser-driven plasmas.
in Optics letters
Kurup A
(2019)
Simulation of a radiobiology facility for the Centre for the Clinical Application of Particles.
in Physica medica : PM : an international journal devoted to the applications of physics to medicine and biology : official journal of the Italian Association of Biomedical Physics (AIFB)
Yang S
(2017)
Energy shift between two relativistic laser pulses copropagating in plasmas
in Physical Review A
Edwards M
(2016)
Multipass relativistic high-order-harmonic generation for intense attosecond pulses
in Physical Review A
Sahai A
(2018)
Quasimonoenergetic laser plasma positron accelerator using particle-shower plasma-wave interactions
in Physical Review Accelerators and Beams
Description | There has been considerable international interest in a community plasma code for particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations. Understanding the community needs has lead to the development of an open project based on a modern redesign of PIC techniques. The resulting EPOCH code has re-invigorated this area of computational physics. Work on the EPOCH project continues through follow on EPSRC funding. |
Exploitation Route | The EPOCH is freely available world-wide with hundreds of international users in addition to its use in all UK plasma physics research groups. The key paper describing EPOCH is cited around 100 times per year with the EPOCH code used in roughly 40 papers per year. The development of EPOCH continues to be funded by EPSRC and the large community of users and developers is expected to keep EPOCH central to UK plasma physics research for at least a decade. |
Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Education,Electronics,Energy |
URL | https://cfsa-pmw.warwick.ac.uk/EPOCH/epoch/wikis/home |
Description | To handle the data from this project a new data format was developed (SDF). This is now used by one UK SME, Fluid Gravity limited, for their commercial codes. SDF is now released through GitHub. SDF allows complex data from HPC simulations to be easily ported between visualisation tools, HPC systems and applications. This has helped Fluid Gravity ltd. improve and harmonise their data management and has defined a standard for plasma physics with Warwick research. Beneficiaries: UK plasma physics code developers and UK SME Contribution Method: It replaced the existing data format used by SME in their commercial codes |
First Year Of Impact | 2012 |
Sector | Aerospace, Defence and Marine,Education,Energy |
Impact Types | Economic |
Description | CCP Flagship Project |
Amount | £380,448 (GBP) |
Funding ID | EP/M011534/1 |
Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 04/2015 |
End | 03/2018 |
Description | Centre for Computational Plasma Physics |
Amount | £326,643 (GBP) |
Funding ID | Contract V30286915 |
Organisation | Atomic Weapons Establishment |
Sector | Private |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 07/2014 |
End | 06/2017 |
Description | Centre for Computational Plasma Physics |
Amount | £264,129 (GBP) |
Organisation | Atomic Weapons Establishment |
Sector | Private |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 10/2017 |
End | 09/2022 |
Description | Extension and optimisation of the EPOCH code |
Amount | £236,478 (GBP) |
Funding ID | EP/P02212X/1 |
Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 06/2017 |
End | 05/2019 |
Description | Multi-scale simulations of intense laser-plasma interactions |
Amount | £439,082 (GBP) |
Funding ID | EP/G054940/1 |
Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 01/2010 |
End | 03/2014 |
Description | Plasma Physics HEC Consortia |
Amount | £279,000 (GBP) |
Funding ID | EP/L000237/1 |
Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 05/2013 |
End | 05/2018 |
Description | The Plasma-CCP Network |
Amount | £125,995 (GBP) |
Funding ID | EP/M022463/1 |
Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 07/2015 |
End | 06/2020 |
Title | Release of EPOCH code |
Description | Release of the EPOCH particle-in-cell code as a publicly available software package. EPOCH has been developed primarily at the University of Warwick as a multi-purpose plasma simulation code. QED algorithms and code to model gamma-ray and electron-positron pair production were developed at Oxford. Warwick implemented the QED package in the publicly released version of EPOCH. The fully documented code is available at https://cfsa-pmw.warwick.ac.uk/EPOCH/epoch. It is being used by experimentalists and theorists from many countries. This initial release of EPOCH was in 2011 but this is continually updated. |
Type Of Technology | Software |
Year Produced | 2016 |
Open Source License? | Yes |
Impact | The UK is now recognised as a world leading centre for kinetic plasma simulations for laser-plasmas |
URL | https://cfsa-pmw.warwick.ac.uk/EPOCH/epoch |