DISCLAIMER 'thisd~tw~~A*ana~t& wti~~magq& *Utiti*t~Gv~t. Ndther the United Statea Government nor the UNVeraityof California nor qny of their employees,makes any warranty, expressor implied, or assumesany legalliabilityor responsibilityfor the accurq, co@etemsa, or WeMnesaofany inforrnatim apparatus, pmdu@ or~dkloae4 or~ts that its use would not Wrings privatelyown dghts. Referenceherein to qy spaific commerd products, process,or serviceby trade nanw trad~manufacturer,or otherwke, doea not necesaady mnatitute or imply its endmemenL mmmmmdatiol&orfavodIig bytheunitedstatea Covernrnent or the Universityof " CaMomia. The views and opinionsof authors eqmased herein do not mmaarily state or reflect those of the United States COVemM ent or the Univemityof Califoti and shall not be used for q dvedaing or productendomemen tpqmaea. Ihfsreporthaabeenreproduced directly hum the beat qvailablecopy.

Plasma simulations are often rendered challenging by the disparity of scales in time and in space which must be resolved. When these disparities are in distinctive zones of the simulation domain, a method which has proven to be effective in other areas (e.g. fluid dynamics simulations) is the mesh refinement technique. We briefly discuss the challenges posed by coupling this technique with

The numerical simulation of the driving beams in a heavy ion fusion power plant is a challenging task, and simulation of the power plant as a whole, or even of the driver, is not yet possible. Despite the rapid progress in computer power, past and anticipated, one must consider the use of the most advanced numerical techniques, if we are to reach our goal expeditiously. One of the difficulties of these simulations resides in the disparity of scales, in time and in space, which must be resolved. When these disparities are in distinctive zones of the simulation region, a method which has proven to be effective in other areas (e.g., fluid dynamics simulations) is the mesh refinement technique. We discuss the challenges posed by the implementation of this technique into plasma simulations (due to the presence of particles and electromagnetic waves). We present the prospects for and projected benefits of its application to heavy ion fusion, in particular to the simulation of the ion source and the final beam propagation in the chamber. A collaboration project is under way at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory between the Applied Numerical Algorithms Group (ANAG) and the Heavy Ion Fusion group to couple the adaptive mesh refinement library CHOMBO developed by the ANAG group to the particle-in-cell accelerator code WARP developed by the Heavy Ion Fusion–Virtual National Laboratory. We describe our progress and present our initial findings.

One contribution of 15 to a discussion meeting issue 'Numerical algorithms for high-performance computational science'. Subject Areas:algorithmic information theory, computer modelling and simulation

No abstract