Toward Plasma Wakefield Simulations at Exascale

Abstract

Turning the current experimental plasma accelerator state-of-the-art from a promising technology into mainstream scientific tools depends critically on high-performance, high-fidelity modeling of complex processes that develop over a wide range of space and time scales. As part of the U.S. Department of Energy's Exascale Computing Project, a team composed of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, SLAC Accelerator National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers is developing a new open-source plasma accelerator simulation tool. The new software will harness the power of future exascale supercomputers for the exploration of outstanding questions in the physics of acceleration and transport of particle beams in chains of plasma channels. This will benefit the ultimate goal of compact and affordable high-energy physics colliders, and many spinoff applications of plasma accelerators along the way. We give an update on some of the code latest developments and discuss future plans.