Numerical Modeling of Nonlocal Energy Transport in Laser-Heated Plasmas

Abstract

Modeling of the nonlocal energy transport in laser-heated plasmas is a challenging task. In order to include such a transport into simulations of plasmas, we propose the nonlocal transport hydrodynamic model, which provides a kinetic model and the classical fluid description at the same time. It resides in direct solution of electron and photon transport equations based on the BGK collision operator which gives an inherent coupling of energy transport to the plasma fluid. Our high-order discontinuous Galerkin scheme of the BGK transport equations and the fluid energy equations gives solutions obeying any regime of transport, i.e. between the local diffusion asymptotic and the collisionless transport asymptotic of free-streaming particles, which is demonstrated in the case of exact steady transport and approximate multi-group diffusion numerical tests. As an application of the nonlocal transport hydrodynamic model, we present simulation results of the ultra-intense laser prepulse interaction with solid targets of different atomic numbers, and results of the laser-driven shock in a plastic foam which is related to study of warm-dense-matter state of carbon. The simulations are calculated using our new Plasma Euler and Transport Equations nonlocal transport hydrodynamic code PETE.