A Deterministic Ionization Algorithm for the OSIRIS Particle-in-Cell Framework

TL;DR

This paper introduces a deterministic ionization algorithm for the OSIRIS particle-in-cell framework, significantly improving accuracy and efficiency in modeling collisional ionization in plasma simulations.

Contribution

It presents a novel deterministic ionization algorithm that enhances accuracy and computational performance in plasma physics simulations within the OSIRIS framework.

Findings

Achieves up to two orders of magnitude decrease in ionization rate error.

Scales linearly with the number of macro-particles per cell.

Validated through physical correctness tests and benchmarking.

Abstract

Ionization is critical in the formation and evolution of plasma dynamics; collisional ionization, in particular, is an often overlooked source of electrons when dealing with laser-plasma interactions. Ionization plays a crucial role in understanding the complex plasma kinetics, ranging from cold and sparse astrophysical settings to hot and dense fusion systems. In this paper, we describe the underlying theory for and development, validation, and verification of an extension to the standard particle-in-cell method to include a deterministic algorithm for collisional ionization physics. This algorithm offers improved accuracy, achieving up to two orders of magnitude decrease in the error of the ionization rate calculations, scales linearly in execution time with the number of macro-particles per cell, has been tested for physical correctness and benchmarked against several codes.