GPU accelerated Monte Carlo simulation of high-intensity pulsed laser-electron interaction

Abstract

We present a new Monte Carlo code for simulating strong field QED effects in high intensity Laser-Electron collisions, accelerated by massively parallel computations on GPUs. The numerical simulation tool is paired with a separate code which solves the Stratton-Chu vector diffraction integrals given the incoming beam on the focusing mirror, to more accurately describe the electromagnetic field at the focus of the mirror. Program summaryProgram title: SFQED codeCPC Library link to program files:https://doi.org/10.17632/bd5m7tf5yr.1Licensing provisions: MIT licenseProgramming language: C++ and CUDANature of problem: Evaluating the electromagnetic field, in the focus of a laser pulse with an arbitrary wavefront and transverse intensity profile focused by a parabolic mirror, is analytically not possible without performing several approximations along the way. It may prove vital in upcoming strong field QED experiments to know the field of an imperfect focused laser pulse exactly when laser intensities become large, as the interaction between high energy electrons and the focused laser pulse is numerically modeled when comparing to experiments.Solution method: We propose to numerically evaluate the Stratton-Chu vector diffraction integrals, given the wavefront and spatial intensity profile of the laser on the focusing mirror, through CUDA, and evaluate the electromagnetic field on a spatial grid around the focus of the laser pulse. A Monte-Carlo code that simulates the interaction between high energy particles and an electromagnetic field, will then use the evaluated focused laser field through trilinear interpolation to find the resulting electric field at the location of the particle in each time step.