Convergence in nonlinear laser wakefield accelerators modeling in a Lorentz-boosted frame

Abstract

Laser wakefield acceleration modeling using the Lorentz-boosted frame technique in the particle-in-cell code has demonstrated orders of magnitude speedups. A convergence study was previously conducted in cases with external injection in the linear regime and without injection in the nonlinear regime, and the obtained results have shown a convergence within the percentage level. In this article, a convergence study is carried out to model electron self-injection in the 2-1/2D configuration. It is observed that the Lorentz-boosted frame technique is capable of modeling complex particle dynamics with a significant speedup. This result is crucial to curtail the computational time of the modeling of future chains of $10\,\mathrm{GeV}$ laser wakefield accelerator stages with high accuracy.