Three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations of beam self-modulation and external injection in plasma wake field acceleration

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The project is aimed at full three-dimensional Particle-in-Cell (PIC) simulations of proton bunch self-modulation in long plasma columns and wake field excitation for high energy acceleration. The simulations are to support the "RUN 2" phase of AWAKE (Advanced WAKEfield) experiment at CERN that exploits self-modulation of a long proton bunch in plasma. Presently, the quasi-static version of our particle-in-cell (PIC) code VLPL (Virtual Laser-Plasma Lab) is used by several groups to simulate the unabridged AWAKE conditions. The RUN 2 phase of AWAKE will use staged plasma cavities and longitudinally tailored plasma profile to optimize the wake structure. The PIC simulations in the full 3D geometry – both quasistatic and electromagnetic ones – are crucial to understand radial symmetry of the excited wake field and the achievable quality of the witness bunch acceleration. To speed up the simulations by an order of magnitude or more, we are going to implement our code in 3D cylindrical geometry and gauge it against the Cartesian geometry.