A three-dimensional electromagnetic particle-in-cell code to simulate heavy ion beam propagation in the reaction chamber

Simulating the beam propagation in the reaction chamber is of great interest for heavy ion inertial fusion. Although results have already been obtained at Berkeley and Livermore, CA, using two-dimensional RZ electromagnetic particle-in-cell PIC codes, developing a three-dimensional code allows the study of all parameters and geometries. Developing such a code on existing supercomputers required special care for the numerical techniques used. We present here the description of the three-dimensional electromagnetic PIC code that we developed at Orsay, including new numerical features: new outgoing-wave boundary algorithm; modified set of Maxwell equations; propagation of the discrepancy to the Poisson equation; dynamic grid following the beam; calculation of the initial values of the electromagnetic fields without a priori boundary values. (orig.)