PIC-JR$_{ho}$m: a pseudo-spectral Particle-In-Cell formulation with arbitrary charge and current densities time dependencies for the modeling of relativistic plasmas

Abstract

This paper introduces a novel formulation of the Particle-In-Cell (PIC) method for the modeling of relativistic plasmas, which leverages the ability of the Pseudo-Spectral Analytical Time-Domain solver (PSATD) to handle arbitrary time dependencies of the charge and current densities during one PIC cycle. The new formulation is applied to a modified set of Maxwell's equations that was proposed earlier in the context of divergence cleaning, and to recently proposed extensions of the PSATD-PIC algorithm. Detailed analysis and testings revealed that, under some condition, the new formulation can expand the range of numerical parameters under which PIC simulations are stable and accurate when modeling relativistic plasmas such as, e.g., plasma-based particle accelerators.