# A Deterministic Ionization Algorithm for the OSIRIS Particle-in-Cell Framework

Source: [A Deterministic Ionization Algorithm for the OSIRIS Particle-in-Cell Framework](<https://www.sota2.com/research/paper/69bb83090636e5bf4afc1a31>)

Collection index: [llms.txt](<https://www.sota2.com/research/llms.txt>)

Data updated: 2026-03-20T05:00:12.244Z

Authors: Stephen DiIorio, Ricardo Fonseca, Frank Tsung, Benjamin J. Winjum, Alec G. R. Thomas

Published: 2026-03-18T16:07:09.000Z

## Abstract

Ionization is critical in the formation and evolution of plasma dynamics; collisional ionization, in particular, is an often overlooked source of electrons when dealing with laser-plasma interactions. Ionization plays a crucial role in understanding the complex plasma kinetics, ranging from cold and sparse astrophysical settings to hot and dense fusion systems. In this paper, we describe the underlying theory for and development, validation, and verification of an extension to the standard particle-in-cell method to include a deterministic algorithm for collisional ionization physics. This algorithm offers improved accuracy, achieving up to two orders of magnitude decrease in the error of the ionization rate calculations, scales linearly in execution time with the number of macro-particles per cell, has been tested for physical correctness and benchmarked against several codes.

## Recorded benchmark results

A research result applies to its stated dataset, split, metric and evaluation configuration. Compare like-for-like settings, preserve the metric's unit and direction, and distinguish paper-reported results from independent reproduction. The best result recorded here is not a claim of exhaustive, current global coverage.

## Original sources and implementation

[Original paper](<https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.17885>)

[PDF](<https://arxiv.org/pdf/2603.17885.pdf>)