Structure-preserving particle-in-cell simulations of ponderomotive barriers

New advances have enabled the development of spectrally-tunable structure-preserving PIC algorithms that are unprecedentedly flexible, affording greater generality in the simulation domain and more finely optimized discrete modeling of differential equations. In this work, we investigate the utility of such an algorithm in the modeling of a ponderomotive barrier [1-3]---recently proposed as a mechanism to improve selective confinement in linear aneutronic fusion devices. In general, the nonthermal, non-collisional plasmas required for aneutronic fusion must be sustained by some means of "phase space engineering", often involving wave-particle interactions. Structure-preserving algorithms, which exactly conserve the Poincare invariants of a phase space, are uniquely equipped to model such effects [4].