Recent progress in computational plasma physics research with the MAGIC electromagnetic-PIC simulation tool

Summary form only given. Reviews recent progress made in both the development of new plasma physics modeling capabilities, and the application of those capabilities to practical problems under investigation at several universities and industrial locations. The focus of the new modeling capabilities is the MAGIC electromagnetic-PIC simulation tool. A new "tuned impedance" boundary condition complements the existing tuned-phase-velocity boundary, and benefits the modeling of TWT and other slow-wave structures in 3-D, eliminating the need to model the coupler geometry. This boundary condition uses a novel implicit algorithm to circumvent the inherent instability which has hindered fixed impedance boundary conditions in the past. Progress on the implementation of the partial-cell-elements algorithm for curved conducting boundaries is reviewed. The addition of an adaptive marching-cubes representation (often encountered in medical imaging technology) of the curved surface forms the basis of the new surface\´s electromagnetic representation as well as its visualization. Two new diagnostics are presented. The first implementation of the "poynting splitter" technology in 3-D has been made. The splitter diagnostic separates forward and backward propagating power. A second diagnostic is the "statespace" graph, which permits alternate representation of time-history data in a form more suitable for the analysis of nonlinear dynamics, including time-delay embedding representation.