SBIR-STTR Award

The objective of this proposal is to establish the feasibility of a virtual-positron experiment by demonstrating the viability of large-scale, three-dimensional particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation to understand antimatter confinement experiments. The virtual positron experiment is a numerical approximation of an antimatter experiment, including the experimental diagnostics. The success of such a systematic computational approach towards understanding experiments has been previously demonstrated. Three-dimensional thermal plasma simulation is extremely computer intensive, but feasible with parallel computation. Fortunately, extraordinary improvements in microprocessors, memory, buses, networks, and software now make it possible to group inexpensive personal computers together to form a distributed parallel cluster. To date, three-dimensional PIC simulation running on a Linux cluster has not been applied to the antimatter confinement problem. The opportunity to incorporate such large-scale simulation technology into the antimatter confinement program will increase the ability to understand the physics of first-generation high-energy-density experiments, which will ultimately lead to successful design of more complex experiments. More importantly, such simulation technology could lead the way to potential breakthroughs in antimatter confinement. The deliverable will be a final report that includes a description of the cluster design, the PIC model, and the verfication simulation results. A low mass system containing hundred's of MJ's of energy for long periods of time has many potential commercial applications. Advanced computational technology combined with distributed parallel clusters will provide the basic design capability for such commercial applications. For example, a Positron Energy Conversion (PEC) ramjet or turbojet, with up to a 30 day flight time, would impact weather surveys, population, fire, agriculture and pollution studies, as well as land and marine assays.

Having established the feasibility of the virtual positron experiment (VPE) in Phase I, the objective of the Phase II proposal is to utilize three-dimensional particle-in-cell capability to investigate standard and novel injection, trapping, and extraction concepts for positron confinement experiments. Standard injection, trapping, and extraction designs will be fielded on the Positronics Research LLC (PRLLC) Positron Penning Trap-1 (PPT-1) experiment. The VPE is tailored specifically to understand the PPT-1 experiment. Four basic issues are positron plasma column stability, confinement time scaling, insulator breakdown, and efficient trapping of positron beams. In Phase I, PRLLC has assembled a 16-processor Linux cluster. In Phase II the cluster will be upgraded to 64-processors. In addition to the ASPEN code, the three-dimensional ICEPIC code will be installed on the cluster. The opportunity to incorporate large-scale simulation technology into the antimatter confinement program will increase the ability to understand the physics of the PPT-1 experiment, which will ultimately lead to successful design of second-generation experiments. The deliverable will be a final report that includes a description of the cluster design, verification and validation results, full-scale simulation results of the PPT-1 experiment, as well as the evaluation of a number of novel injection, trapping, and extraction concepts.

Keywords:
antimatter, positrons, plasmas, clusters, particle-in-cell code, numerical experiment, numerical diagnostics, predictive design