Documentation

VORPAL currently includes a User's Guide, a Reference Manual, and an Example Guide as documentation. The User's Guide is an introduction to using VORPAL, covering how to install VORPAL, create an input file, run a simulation, and analyze the results. The Reference Manual contains full details on creating and using simulations with VORPAL. The Example Guide describes uses the tests found in VpTests to show users how to begin modeling certain types of problems. All documents are available for download as PDF files below.

Input Files and Simulations

Additionally, some example VORPAL input files are provided below. These input files and the simulations they describe are discussed in the

If your questions are not answered by the above documents, please see the FAQ or take a look at the various ways to contact Tech-X technical support.

Research Using VORPAL

Many white papers, journal articles, and conference presentations have been published with the help of VORPAL. A partial bibliography is below; where possible, links to the papers have been provided.

2009

C. Nieter, J. R. Cary, G. R. Werner, D. N. Smithe, and P. H. Stoltz, “Application of Dey-Mittra conformal boundary algorithm to 3D electromagnetic modeling.” J. Comp. Phys. 228 (2009) 7902-7916.

2008

Bell, George I., David L. Bruhwiler, Alexei Fedotov, Andrey Sobol, Richard S. Busby, Peter Stoltz, Dan T. Abell, Peter Messmer, Ilan Ben-Zvi and Vladimir Litvinenko. "Simulating the dynamical friction force on ions due to a briefly co-propagating electron beam." Journal of Computational Physics (2008), DOI: 10.1016/j.jcp.2008.06.019
Karoly Nemeth, Baifei Shen, Yuelin Li, Robert Crowell, Katherine C. Harkay, and John R. Cary, “Laser driven coherent betatron oscillation in a laser-wakefield cavity,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 095002 (2008), doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.100.095002.

2007

D.A. Dimitrov, R. E. Giacone, D. L. Bruhwiler, R. Busby, J. R. Cary, C. G. R. Geddes, E. Esarey, and W. P. Leemans. "Coupling of laser energy into plasma channels." Phys. Plasmas 14, 043105 (2007)
S. A. Veitzer and P. H. Stoltz, "Simulations of electron generation and dynamics in a hollow cathode with applied magnetic field", Nucl. Instrum. and Meth. in Physics Research Section B, v. 261, (2007), 204-208, doi:10.1016/j.nimb.2007.04.291.
G. R. Werner and J. R. Cary, “A Stable FDTD Algorithm for Non-diagonal, Anisotropic Dielectrics,” J. Comp. Phys. 226, 1085-1101 (2007), doi:10.1016/j.jcp.2007.05.008.

2006

A.V. Fedotov, D.L. Bruhwiler, A.O. Sidorin, D.T. Abell, I. Ben-Zvi, R. Busby, J.R. Cary and V.N. Litvinenko, "Numerical study of the magnetized friction force", Phys. Rev. ST/AB 9, 074401 (2006).
Messmer, Peter 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)

2005

Paesold, G., E.G. Blackman and P. Messmer, 'On particle acceleration and trapping by Poynting flux dominated flows', Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion, Vol. 47, No. 11, 1925-1947, 2005.
P. Messmer, 'Electromagnetic Simulations of Dusty Plasmas', Lecture Notes in Computer Science, LNCS 3732, 583, 2005.
C. G. R. Geddes, Cs. Toth, J. van Tilborg, E. Esarey, C. B. Schroeder, J. Cary, and W. P. Leemans, "Guiding of relativistic laser pulses by preformed plasma channels," Phys. Rev. Lett. (2005) in review.
C.G. R. Geddes, Cs. Toth, J. van Tilborg, E. Esarey, C. B. Schroeder, D. Bruhwiler, C. Nieter, J. Cary, and W. P. Leemans, "Production of high-quality electron bunches by dephasing and beam loading in channeled and unchanneled laser plasma accelerators," Phys. Plasmas 12 (5), 056709 (2005).
J. R. Cary, R. Giacone, C. Nieter, D. L. Bruhwiler, "Clean beams from optical injection with a cleanup pulse," Phys. Plasmas 12 (5), 056704 (2005).

2004

C. Nieter and J. R. Cary, "VORPAL: a versatile plasma simulation code", J. Comp. Phys. 196, 448-472 (2004).
P. Messmer and D.L. Bruhwiler, "An electrostatic solver for the VORPAL code", Computer Physics Communications 164 (2004), p. 118.
Cameron G.R. Geddes, Csaba Toth, Jeroen van Tilborg, Eric Esarey, Carl B. Schroeder, David L. Bruhwiler, Chet Nieter, John R. Cary, and Wim Leemans, "High-quality electron beams from a laser wakefield accelerator using plasma-channel guiding", Nature 431 (2004), p. 538-541.
Alexei V. Fedotov, Ilan Ben-Zvi, David L. Bruhwiler, Yu. Eidelman, Vladimir N. Litvinenko, N. Malitsky, A. Sidorin I. Meshkov, A. Smirnov, and G. Trubnikov, "Electron cooling dynamics for RHIC", In Proc. 33rd ICFA Advanced Beam Dynamics Workshop 2004.
David L. Bruhwiler, Richard Busby, Alexei V. Fedotov, Ilan Ben-Zvi, John R. Cary, Peter Stoltz, Alexey Burov, Vladimir N. Litvinenko, Peter Messmer, Dan T. Abell, and Chet Nieter, "Direct simulation of friction forces for heavy ions interacting with a warm magnetized electron distribution", In Proc. 33rd ICFA Advanced Beam Dynamics Workshop 2004.
P. Messmer, "Electromagnetic modeling of dusty plasmas", In Proc. PARA04 Workshop on State-of-the-Art in Scientific Computing. LNCS 2004.
Cameron G.R. Geddes, Csaba Toth, Jeroen van Tilborg, Eric Esarey, Carl B. Schroeder, David L. Bruhwiler, John R. Cary, and Wim Leemans, "Laser guiding at relativistic intensities and wakefield particle acceleration in plasma channels", In Proceedings of the 11th Advanced Accelerator Concepts Workshop Stony Brook, NY 2004.
P. Messmer, D.L. Bruhwiler, J.R. Cary, and D.A. Dimitrov, "Ion acceleration and wave generation by overdense laser-plasma interaction", In Proceedings of the 11th Advanced Accelerator Concepts Workshop Stony Brook, NY 2004.
Dimitre A. Dimitrov, David L. Bruhwiler, John R. Cary, Peter Messmer, Cameron G.R. Geddes, Wim Leemans, and Eric Esarey, "Particle-in-cell simulations of intense laser pulses coupling into plasma channels", In Proceedings of the 11th Advanced Accelerator Concepts Workshop Stony Brook, NY 2004.

Recent Conference Proceedings Papers Relevant to VORPAL

G.I. Bell, D.L. Bruhwiler, A. Sobol, I. Ben-Zvi, V. Litvinenko, Ya. Derbenev, "VORPAL Simulations Relevant to Coherent Electron Cooling," European Part. Accel. Conf. Proc. (2008), p. 3187.
D.L. Bruhwiler, J.R. Cary, B. Cowan, K. Paul, C.G.R. Geddes, P.J. Mullowney, P. Messmer, E. Esarey, E. Cormier-Michel W.P. Leemans and J.-L. Vay, "New Developments in the Simulation of Advanced Accelerator Concepts," Proc. Advanced. Accel. Concepts Workshop (2008), in press.
B. Cowan, D.L. Bruhwiler, P. Messmer, K. Paul, C.G.R. Geddes, E. Esarey and E. Cormier-Michel, "Laser wakefield simulation using a speed-of-light frame envelope model," Proc. Advanced. Accel. Concepts Workshop (2008), in press.
K. Paul, D.L. Bruhwiler, B. Cowan, J.R. Cary, C. Huang, F.S. Tsung, W.B. Mori, E. Cormier-Michel, C.G.R. Geddes, E. Esarey, S. Martins, R.A. Fonseca and L.O. Silva, "Benchmarking the codes VORPAL, OSIRIS and QuickPIC with Laser Wakefield Acceleration Simulations," Proc. Advanced. Accel. Concepts Workshop (2008), in press.
Cormier-Michel, C.G.R. Geddes, E. Esarey, C.B. Schroeder, D.L. Bruhwiler, K. Paul, B. Cowan and W.P. Leemans, "Scaled simulations of a 10 GeV accelerator," Proc. Advanced. Accel. Concepts Workshop (2008), in press.
G.R. Geddes, E. Cormier-Michel, E. Esarey, K. Nakamura, G.R. Plateau, C.B. Schroeder, Cs. Toth, D.L. Bruhwiler, J.R. Cary and W.P. Leemans, "Plasma gradient controlled injection and postacceleration of high quality electron bunches," Proc. Advanced. Accel. Concepts Workshop (2008), in press.
G.R. Geddes, D.L. Bruhwiler, J.R. Cary, E. Esarey, A.J. Gonsalves, C. Lin, E. Cormier-Michel, N.H. Matlis, K. Nakamura, M. Bakeman, D. Panasenko, G.R. Plateau, C.B. Schroeder, C. Toth and W.P. Leemans, "Development of high gradient laser wakefield accelerators towards nuclear detection applications at LBNL," Proc. Int. Conf. on Applications of Accelerators in Research and Industry (2008), in press.

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