17–22 May 2026
C.I.D
Europe/Zurich timezone

WarpX Simulation of the Plasma Meniscus Effect in a Neutral Beam Injection System

TUP3068
19 May 2026, 16:00
2h
C.I.D

C.I.D

Deauville, France
Poster Presentation MC3.T01: Advanced techniques/Novel sources: Proton and Ion Sources Poster session

Speaker

Bao Nguyen (Realta Fusion, Imperial College London)

Description

The DOE INFUSE collaboration between Realta Fusion [1] and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory aims to extend WarpX towards high fidelity modeling of neutral beam injection (NBI) systems. WarpX is a parallel, open source, and portable particle-in-cell (PIC) code with an active developer community and demonstrated scalability [2]. In this work, we implement and validate the plasma meniscus modeling for a positive ion source using first principle PIC simulations. The simulations are performed in the electrostatic mode with extraction electrodes represented as embedded boundaries. The upstream plasma reservoir is modeled using a thermal injection scheme with real electron mass to capture the correct sheath physics. Finally, we quantify how the plasma pressure and extraction voltage shape the meniscus profile and influence the extracted beam quality. These results and validations form a crucial basis for future extensions to negative ion sources and photo-neutralization, enabling start to end NBI modeling within WarpX.

Footnotes

[1] D. Endrizzi et al., (2023). DOI:10.1017/S0022377823000806
[2] J.-L. Vay et al., (2018). DOI:10.5281/zenodo.4571577

Funding Agency

Work supported by Realta Fusion and the INFUSE program under CRADA No. FP00019597. Simulations performed on NERSC under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231 using NERSC award FES-ERCAP0026655.

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Author

Bao Nguyen (Realta Fusion, Imperial College London)

Co-authors

Arianna Formenti (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) Arun Persaud (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) Craig Jacobson (Realta Fusion) Derek Sutherland (Realta Fusion) Jean-Luc Vay (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) Kai Shih (Realta Fusion) Olga Shapoval (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) Remi Lehe (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) Sam Frank (Realta Fusion)

Presentation materials

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