VORPAL: a Versatile Plasma Simulation Code

The VORPAL project consists of the VORPAL code, a relativistic, arbitrary dimensional, hybrid plasma and beam simulation code, along with utilities for data analysis and scripts for data visualization. The VORPAL code is written in C++. It is templated over scalar type (float or double) and over the dimension, so that with this one code one can simulate 1D, 2D, or 3D problems with no loss of efficiency or speed. Data analysis utilities (e.g., extraction of subsets of particles) are written in C++ and as shell scripts. Visualization scripts for both OpenDX and RSI's IDL are part of the distribution.

VORPAL is currently being used to study a number of plasma physics problems:

• Generation of laser wake fields
• Optical injection of particles into wake fields
• Electron cooling of ion beams
• Photonic band gap systems
• RF heating of fusion plasmas
• Magnetic reconnection
• Accelerator cavities
• Plasma thrusters

Obtaining VORPAL

VORPAL is a commercial product and can be purchased from Tech-X Corporation. In some cases, VORPAL can be obtained for non commercial purposes through a collaboration agreement. Contact Prof. John R. Cary at the University of Colorado for more details.

Documentation

• The User manual contains information on
  • Capabilities
  • Input file construction
  • Executing VORPAL in serial and parallel
  • Visualizing the data
  • Debugging runs
• The Developer handbook contains
  • How to build VORPAL in Sec. IIB.
• A run management system

Sample visualizations

• Visualizations using Open DX
• Visualizations using GnuPlotPy
• Visualizations using IDL

The classes are fully documented using Doxygen, and a FAQ is available.

Milestones

• August 30, 2001: The code is working in 2D with fluids. We are able to inject a laser into a plasma ramp with no instability.
• September 2, 2001: First 3D results for the interaction of a laser pulse with a plasma ramp completed.
• March 2, 2002: PIC now implemented.
• January 22, 2003: Paper discussing coding architecture and techniques submitted to the Journal of Computational Physics.
• September 2, 2003: Revised paper submitted to the Journal of Computational Physics.
• May 20, 2004: Paper describing VORPAL appears. Reference is "VORPAL: a versatile plasma simulation code," Chet Nieter and John R. Cary, Journal of Computational Physics, Volume 196, Issue 2 (20 May 2004).
• September 30, 2004: VORPAL simulation makes the cover of Nature. The paper is C. G. R. Geddes, Cs. Toth, J. van Tilborg, E. Esarey, C. B. Schroeder, D. Bruhwiler, C. Nieter, J. Cary, and W. P. Leemans, "High-quality electron beams from a laser wakefield accelerator using plasma-channel guiding," Nature 431, 538-541 (Sep. 2004).
• November 17, 2004: VORPAL simulations are the subject of an invited talk at the annual meeting of the Division of Plasma Physics of the American Physical Society: J. R. Cary, "Formation of clean single beams through Optical Injection in a Plasma Channel." At that same conference multiple presentations discussed the use of VORPAL. These included presentations on magnetic reconnection in astrophysical contexts, compact accelerators, and radiofrequency heating of tokamaks.
• December 15, 2004: Implementation details and results for the electrostatic solver in VORPAL were published: Peter Messmer and David L. Bruhwiler, "A Parallel Electrostatic Solver for the VORPAL Code", Comp. Phys. Commun. 164 (3), 118, 2004.
• March 13, 2006: Results and implementation details of the envelope model in VORPAL are published: Peter Messmer and David L. Bruhwiler, "Simulating Laser Pulse Propagation and Low-Frequency Wave Emission in Capillary Plasma Channel Systems with a Ponderomotive Guiding Center Model", Phys. Rev. ST Accel. Beams 9, 031302 (2006)

Reporting problems

Users should send questions and report problems to the list, vorpal-users, which is on the server, mail-beams.colorado.edu. To join this list, go to http://fusion.txcorp.com/mailman/listinfo/vorpal-users. Once you have joined, you can see past correspondence at http://fusion.txcorp.com/mailman/private/vorpal-users/.

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