Continuation of Petascale Simulation of HED Plasmas

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This project will use Blue Waters unique capabilities to research several problems in plasma physics that are of national importance. Specifically, this project will use UCLA particle-in-cell software to address fundamental research questions in three science areas. This research will help determine if plasma-based acceleration can be the basis of new compact accelerators for use at the energy frontier, as a next generation coherent x-ray sources with applications in medicine, material science, and in homeland security. It will also help to determine if laser plasma instabilities can be controlled or harnessed to successfully demonstrate inertial fusion. Finally, it will be used to understand the structure, formation, and particle acceleration in collision less shocks that may help to develop energetic ion sources and to understand if relativistic collision less shocks that are responsible for the most energetic particles in the universe.The UCLA Simulation of Plasmas Group has spent several decades developing deep physics understanding of phenomenon in key areas of plasma physics. It has also helped to formulate key compelling questions in each of these areas, that if answered could be transformative. The team has built up a comprehensive suite of fully kinetic plasma simulation software tools based on the particle-in-cell method that include a variety of physics, that are highly optimized on a single compute core, and that scale to the full size of leadership class computers such as Blue Waters. Some of this software is available as open source. Codes developed by the project are used to make scientific discoveries that impact diverse fields with significant societal impact such as high-energy physics, fusion energy, and astro and space physics.