Abstract
Under the presence of ultra high intensity lasers or other intense electromagnetic fields the motion of particles in the ultrarelativistic regime can be severely affected by radiation reaction. The standard particle-in-cell (PIC) algorithms do not include radiation reaction effects. Even though this is a well known mechanism, there is not yet a definite algorithm nor a standard technique to include radiation reaction in PIC codes. We have compared several models for the calculation of the radiation reaction force, with the goal of implementing an algorithm for classical radiation reaction in the Osiris framework, a state-of-the-art PIC code. The results of the different models are compared with standard analytical results, and the relevance/advantages of each model are discussed. Numerical issues relevant to PIC codes such as resolution requirements, application of radiation reaction to macro particles and computational cost are also addressed. For parameters of interest where the classical description of the electron motion is applicable, all the models considered are shown to give comparable results. The Landau and Lifshitz reduced model is chosen for implementation as one of the candidates with the minimal overhead and no additional memory requirements.
Highlights
The generation of high-power lasers is going to reach intensities that will open new doors for exploring a wide range of physical problems with an even wider range of applications
Though several models for classical radiation reaction have been proposed in the literature, there is not a definite standard choice to apply in PIC codes
If we examine equations (2), (3) and (9), we can see that the ratio between the radiation reaction force and the Lorentz force is proportional to the cube of the charge, and to the reciprocal value of the squared mass radiating coherently
Summary
The generation of high-power lasers is going to reach intensities that will open new doors for exploring a wide range of physical problems with an even wider range of applications. At high intensities particle acceleration can be severely limited by the radiation reaction associated with the energy loss via radiation emission [11]. This is important whenever the radiated energy is comparable to the total particle energy. We test each of them with well studied examples of particle motion in electromagnetic fields where the trajectory can be analytically expressed and estimates for the radiated power/energy can be obtained. One would need to impose a linear acceleration so high that an extreme electric field required to produce it would render a classical description of an electron trajectory inapplicable.
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