Speaker
Description
A free electron laser (FEL) is a revolutionary light source capable of producing femtosecond-duration hard X-rays. These properties make FELs ideal for probing rapidly evolving phenomena, such as shock waves in metals, and for imaging dense materials, like in bone tomography. However, modeling FELs is challenging due to their extremely short radiation wavelengths and the large physical size of the devices, which can span several kilometers.
Here, we demonstrate the use of boosted frame particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations to efficiently model FEL radiation and interactions. The Doppler redshift and length contraction in the boosted frame yield a significant computational speedup, scaling as 𝛾^2. Simulations that would take over a month in the lab frame can now be completed within hours in the boosted frame. PIC simulations accurately capture critical effects such as emittance and space-charge dynamics. Additionally, the flexibility of the PIC framework allows seamless integration of additional physics through modular extensions, enabling a comprehensive approach to studying FELs.
