MITHRA 1.0: A full-wave simulation tool for Free Electron Lasers

TL;DR

MITHRA 1.0 is a comprehensive full-wave simulation software for Free Electron Lasers that accurately models FEL interactions without common approximations, aiding optimization and understanding of FEL dynamics.

Contribution

The paper introduces a novel FDTD/PIC-based numerical algorithm for full-wave FEL simulation in a Lorentz boosted frame, enabling detailed analysis without typical simplifications.

Findings

Successfully simulated various FEL configurations

Benchmarked results against standard FEL codes

Demonstrated computational feasibility with parallelization

Abstract

Free Electron Lasers (FELs) are a solution for providing intense, coherent and bright radiation in the hard X-ray regime. Due to the low wall-plug efficiency of FEL facilities, it is crucial and additionally very useful to develop complete and accurate simulation tools for better optimizing a FEL interaction. The highly sophisticated dynamics involved in a FEL process was the main obstacle hindering the development of general simulation tools for this problem. We present a numerical algorithm based on finite difference time domain/Particle in cell (FDTD/PIC) in a Lorentz boosted coordinate system which is able to fulfil a full-wave simulation of a FEL process. The developed software offers a suitable tool for the analysis of FEL interactions without considering any of the usual approximations. A coordinate transformation to bunch rest frame makes the very different length scales of bunch size, optical wavelengths and the undulator period transform to values with the same order. Consequently, FDTD/PIC simulations in conjunction with efficient parallelization techniques make the full-wave simulation feasible using the available computational resources. Several examples of free electron lasers are analyzed using the developed software, the results are benchmarked based on standard FEL codes and discussed in detail.