Understand

• Units
  • Basic reference quantities
  • Arbitrary reference quantities
  • Tips for the namelist
  • Problems requiring explicit units
  • Quantities integrated over the grid
  • Macro-particle weights
• PIC algorithms
  • The Maxwell-Vlasov model
  • Quasi-particles
  • Time and space discretization
  • Initialization of the simulation
  • The PIC loop
    • Field interpolation
    • Particle push
    • Current deposition
    • Maxwell solvers
  • Boundary conditions
  • Multi-pass filtering of the current densities
  • Friedman filter on the electric field
• Parallelization & optimization
  • Parallelization basics
    • Nodes, cores, processes and threads
    • Managing processes and threads
    • Decomposition of the whole domain
    • Load balancing between MPI patch collections
    • Practical setup
    • MPI patch collections forming rectangular areas
  • Single-domain multiple decompositions
  • Vectorization
    • Notion of Single Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD) Vectorization
    • SIMD vectorization of the particle operators
    • Vectorization Performance
    • Adaptive vectorization
    • Large-scale simulations
      • Mildly-relativistic collisionless shock
• Physics modules
  • Binary collisions & reactions
    • The binary collision scheme
    • Test cases for collisions
    • Collisional ionization
    • Test cases for ionization
    • Nuclear reactions
    • Collisions debugging
    • References
  • Ionization
    • Collisional ionization
    • Field ionization
      • Physical model for field ionization
      • Monte-Carlo scheme
      • Benchmarks
    • Field ionization with a laser envelope
    • User-defined ionization rate
    • References
  • High-energy photon emission & radiation reaction
    • Inverse Compton scattering
      • Assumptions
      • Rate of photon emission and associated quantities
      • Regimes of radiation reaction
        • For arbitrary values of the electron quantum parameter \(\chi\) (but mandatory in the quantum regime \(\chi \gtrsim 1\))
        • Intermediate, moderately quantum regime \(\chi \lesssim 1\)
        • The classical regime \(\chi \ll 1\)
        • Choosing the good model for your simulation
    • Implementation
      • Continuous, Landau-Lifshitz-like models
      • Fokker-Planck stochastic model of Niel et al.
      • Monte-Carlo full-quantum model
    • Benchmarks
      • Radiation emission by ultra-relativistic electrons in a constant magnetic field
      • Counter-propagating plane wave, 1D
      • Synchrotron, 2D
      • Thin foil, 2D
    • Performances
    • References
  • Multiphoton Breit-Wheeler pair creation
    • Physical model
    • Stochastic scheme
    • Implementation
    • Tables
    • Benchmarks
      • Synchrotron, 2D
      • Counter-propagating plane wave, 1D
• Advanced numerical techniques
  • Azimuthal modes decomposition
    • Mathematical definition
    • Decomposition of vector fields
    • Maxwell’s equations in cylindrical geometry
    • Interaction with the macro-particles
    • Tips
    • Conventions for the namelist
    • Classical and relativistic Poisson’s equation
    • The envelope model in cylindrical coordinates
    • On-Axis boundary conditions in FDTD
      • Primal and Dual grids
      • Cancellation on axis
      • Transverse field on axis
      • Longitudinal fields on axis
      • Below axis
      • Currents near axis
  • Laser envelope model
    • The envelope approximation
    • The envelope equation
    • The ponderomotive equations of motion
    • The averaged electromagnetic fields
    • The ponderomotive PIC loop
      • Field interpolation
      • Susceptibility deposition
      • Ponderomotive momentum push
      • Envelope equation solution
      • Ponderomotive position push
      • Current deposition
      • Maxwell solvers
    • Laser polarization in the envelope model
    • Computing the laser electric field from the laser envelope
    • The numerical solution of the envelope equation
    • References
  • Particle Merging
    • Understand the method
      • 1. Momentum sub-groups
      • 2. Merging algorithm for massive macro-particles
      • 3. Merging algorithm for macro-photons
    • Implementation details
      • 1. Cartesian sub-group discretization
      • 2. Spherical sub-group discretization
      • 3. Solid-angle correction in 3D
      • 4. Accumulation effect
      • 5. Logarithmic scale
    • Simulation results
      • 1. 3D QED cascade
    • References
  • Particle Injector
    • The method implemented in Smilei
    • Recommendation
    • Implementation
  • Field initialization for relativistic species
    • The relativistic Poisson’s equation
    • Recommendations for relativistic species field initialization
    • References