Large-scale simulations of laser-plasma interaction: state of the art and next steps

We present new results on PIConGPU, a GPGPU implementation of a relativistic 3D3V particle-in-cell implementation. We show weak and strong scalings for PIConGPU on large GPU clusters and discuss the techniques used to achieve such scalability.
We furthermore introduce new physics and analysis modules added to PIConGPU that have previously not been seen in laser-plasma interaction simulations. The new analysis modules help to better conduct large parameter surveys and increase the usability of the code. One of the special features of these analysis models is that all of them are in-memory and thus allow for live generation of simulation videos at frames per second time step rates. The new physics modules focus on the generation of radiation during the laser-plasma interaction and the inter-particle interactions.
We finally discuss new techniques to scale PIConGPU and other particle-in-cell codes to Exaflop performance and the possible benefits of such extreme scaling performance.