Radiation in simulations of high intensity laser-matter interaction

Licentiate thesis, 2016

We consider electromagnetic waves propagating in plasmas, with two main themes covered. First nonlinear plasma theory and wave-wave interaction. Here a wave-wave symmetry, the Manley-Rowe relations, is used as a method of determining the physicality of modified plasma fluid equations. Secondly, we consider radiation emission in simulations of laser-matter interaction where we develop a method of calculating high frequency radiation from relativistic particles, which is not included in particle-in-cell simulations. This is benchmarked against radiation reaction losses and also used in order to compare the radiation between cases where either classical or QED equations of motion are used.