A 3-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 in terest for heavy ion inertial fusion. Although results have already be en obtained at Berkeley and Livermore, CA, using two-dimensional RZ el ectromagnetic particle-in-cell PIC) codes, developing a three-dimensio nal 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 thre e-dimensional electromagnetic PIC code that we developed at Orsay, inc luding new numerical features: new outgoing-wave boundary algorithm; m odified set of Maxwell equations; propagation of the discrepancy to th e Poisson equation; dynamic grid following the beam; calculation of th e initial values of the electromagnetic fields without a priori bounda ry values.