Improving the Capabilities of a Continuum Laser Plasma Interaction Code

The numerical simulation of plasmas is a critical tool for inertial confinement fusion (ICF). We have been working to improve the predictive capability of a continuum laser plasma interaction code pF3d, which couples a continuum hydrodynamic model of an unmagnetized plasma to paraxial wave equations modeling the laser light. Advanced numerical techniques such as local mesh refinement, multigrid, and multifluid Godunov methods have been adapted and applied to nonlinear heat conduction and to multifluid plasma models. We describe these algorithms and briefly demonstrate their capabilities.