Modeling Traveling-wave Thomson scattering using PIConGPU

Traveling-wave Thomson scattering (TWTS) laser pulses are pulse-front tilted and dispersion corrected beams that enable all-optical free-electron lasers (OFELs) up to the hard X-ray range. Electrons in such a side-scattering geometry experience the TWTS laser field as a continuous plane wave over centimeter to meter interaction lengths.
After briefly discussing which OFEL scenarios are currently numerically accessible, we detail implementation and tests of TWTS beams within PIConGPU (3D-PIC code) and show how numerical dispersion and boundary effects are kept under control.