3D MHD simulation of capillary discharge for the BELLA project

Summary form only given. The project BELLA (LBNL, USA) is aimed to create an experimental facility for further advancing the development of laser-driven electron acceleration¹. BELLA´s unique attribute is the ability to use laser light to accelerate an electron beam up to 10 GeV level in a comparatively short distance of approximately one meter. The acceleration takes place during the propagation of a high power femtosecond laser pulse in the plasma formed in a capillary discharge. This capillary plasma forms a plasma channel able to guide the laser pulse, which in its turn forms a plasma wake wave that accelerates the injected electrons.To achieve a good coupling of a laser pulse with the capillary wave guide it is necessary to have a tool for the simulation of a 3D electron distribution inside the capillary, near the open ends of the capillary as well as near the channels supplying neutral hydrogen into the capillary. We use the MARPLE3D code2 to perform such simulations. MARPLE3D is an Eulerian numerical tool designed for simulations of radiative magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) problems related to experiments with magnetically driven high energy density plasmas. The simulations were performed at the supercomputer NERSK (LBNL, USA). Our main result that will be presented at the conference will concern 2D electron density distributions close to the open ends of the capillary.