Ionization Profile Monitor Simulations - Status and Future Plans

Nonuniformities of the extraction fields, the velocity distribution of electrons from ionization processes and strong bunch fields are just a few of the effects affecting Ionization Profile Monitor measurements and operation. Careful analysis of these phenomena require specialized simulation programs. A handful of such codes have been written independently by various researchers over the recent years, showing an important demand for this type of study. In this paper we describe the available codes and discuss various approaches to Ionization Profile Monitor simulations. We propose benchmark conditions to compare these codes among each other and we collect data from various devices to benchmark codes against the measurements. Finally we present a community effort with a goal to discuss the codes, exchange simulation results and to develop and maintain a new, common codebase.