The particle-in-cell (PIC) code CALDER [1] developed at CEA can be used to simulate, at their most fundamental level, a wide range of plasmas whose constituents (electrons, ions), possibly relativistic, collide weakly with one another. This is known as a kinetic simulation because, unlike the fluid approach, no assumptions are made about the velocity distribution function of the plasma constituents. This code is parallelized to take advantage of modern supercomputers and runs in 1D, 2D, 3D geometry, or quasi-3D with its CALDER-CIRC variant. CALDER is continuously upgraded thanks to the addition of new physics modules, and is capable of handling very diverse physical problems: instabilities in plasmas, production of energetic particles and radiation via the interaction between a laser or a particle beam and a gas or solid target, astrophysical phenomena, etc. Recent developments enable the description of certain atomic and radiative processes, as well as high-energy physics. This tool is shared with our academic collaborators.
![Top: Oblique Two-Stream Instability (OTSI) and Current Filamentation Instability (CFI) of an ultra-relativistic electron beam propagating from left to right in an aluminium target. Bottom left: interaction between a beam of ultra-relativistic electrons (shown in white, coming from the left) with a metal foil (its edges are shown as vertical dotted lines). The latters behaves as a mirror for the beam (the magnetic field shown in colors), and leads to a strong gamma ray emission [2]. Bottom right: filamentation of the PETAL laser beams as it propagates from left to right in a plasma [3].](https://www-lmce.cea.fr/LMCE/images/plasma_physics/image_calder.png)
Figure: Three numerical simulations carried out with CALDER.
Top: Oblique Two-Stream Instability (OTSI) and Current Filamentation Instability (CFI) of an ultra-relativistic electron beam propagating from left to right in an aluminium target. Bottom left: interaction between a beam of ultra-relativistic electrons (shown in white, coming from the left) with a metal foil (its edges are shown as vertical dotted lines). The latters behaves as a mirror for the beam (the magnetic field shown in colors), and leads to a strong gamma ray emission [2]. Bottom right: filamentation of the PETAL laser beams as it propagates from left to right in a plasma [3].
Publications
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E. Lefebvre, N. Cochet, S. Fritzler, V. Malka, M.-M. Aléonard, J.-F. Chemin, S. Darbon, L. Disdier, J. Faure, A. Fedotoff, O. Landoas, G. Malka, V. Meot, P. Morel, M. R. L. Gloahec, A. Rouyer, C. Rubbelynck, V. Tikhonchuk, R. Wrobel, P. Audebert, and C. Rousseaux, “Electron and photon production from relativistic laser–plasma interactions,” Nucl. Fus. 43, 629 (2003) DOI
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P. San Miguel Claveria, X. Davoine, J.R. Peterson, M. Gilljohann, I. Andriyash, R. Ariniello, C. Clarke, H. Ekerfelt, C. Emma, J. Faure, S. Gessner, M.J. Hogan, C. Joshi, C.H. Keitel, A. Knetsch, O. Kononenko, M. Litos, Y. Mankovska, K. Marsh, A. Matheron, Z. Nie, B. O’Shea, D. Storey, N. Vafaei-Najafabadi, Y. Wu, X. Xu, J. Yan, C. Zhang, M. Tamburini, F. Fiuza, L. Gremillet, “Spatiotemporal dynamics of ultrarelativistic beam-plasma instabilities,” Phys. Rev. Res. 4, 023085 (2022) DOI
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D. Raffestin, L. Lecherbourg, I. Lantuejoul, B. Vauzour, P. E. Masson-Laborde, X. Davoine, N. Blanchot, J. L. Dubois, X. Vaisseau, E. d’Humières, L. Gremillet, A. Duval, C. Reverdin, B. Rosse, G. Boutoux, J. E. Ducret, C. Rousseaux, V. Tikhonchuk, D. Batani, “Enhanced ion acceleration using the high-energy petawatt PETAL laser,” MRE 6, 056901 (2021) DOI