Generation of controllable plasma wakefield noise in particle-in-cell simulations

Numerical simulations of beam-plasma instabilities may produce quantitatively incorrect results because of unrealistically high initial noise from which the instabilities develop. Of particular importance is the wakefield noise, the potential perturbations that have a phase velocity which is equal to the beam velocity. Controlling the noise level in simulations may offer the possibility of extrapolating simulation results to the more realistic low-noise case. We propose a novel method for generating wakefield noise with a controllable amplitude by randomly located charged rods propagating ahead of the beam. We also illustrate the method with particle-in-cell simulations. The generation of this noise is not accompanied by parasitic Cherenkov radiation waves. Published by AIP Publishing.