Probing Super-Critical Electromagnetic Fields with Petawatt Lasers

用拍瓦激光器探测超临界电磁场

• 批准号: 2108075
• 负责人: Alexander Thomas
• 金额: $ 60万
• 依托单位: Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-06-01 至 2024-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2108075&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Probing; Super; Critical; Electromagnetic; Fields

This project supports efforts to design experiments for the new National Science Foundation-funded high intensity Zettawatt-Equivalent Ultrashort pulse laser System (ZEUS) facility. High peak-power lasers, such as the ZEUS multi-Petawatt laser can generate extreme electromagnetic fields through focusing the power down to a tiny spot. These fields are capable of accelerating charged particles to near the speed of light in a fraction of a million billionth of a second, producing bright, point-like sources of radiation. In such strong fields, high-energy gamma-rays can spontaneously decay into pairs of matter-antimatter particles, leading to matter creation from light. This project will design experiments for the ZEUS facility to measure matter creation and amplification of the process through a chain reaction. The project will support graduate students and should enable a study of dense and ultrashort duration beams of antimatter.The ZEUS laser facility will generate few-gigaelectronvolt electron beams through laser wakefield acceleration, which is a method for generating beams of electrons using the accelerating field structure produced in a plasma in the wake of a high-power, ultrashort pulsed laser. By colliding the electron beam with a second, tightly focused, high-power laser pulse, the field strength is expected to greatly exceed the critical field of quantum electrodynamics in the electron rest frame, leading to electron-positron pair production. Graduate students will participate in designing and building particle detectors for ZEUS experiments, the plasma target for controlled injection of stable monoenergetic beams and guiding of the laser to achieve multi-GeV energies, and modelling the laser-electron collision physics using advanced quantum kinetic codes. Understanding the laser interaction physics is crucial for the frontier ZEUS experiments to be successful. In the final year of the project, laser time with ZEUS is anticipated to be available for the first runs for this frontier experiment.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该项目支持为国家科学基金会资助的新高强度泽瓦等效超短脉冲激光系统（ZEUS）设施设计实验。 高峰值功率激光器，例如 ZEUS 多拍瓦激光器，可以通过将功率聚焦到一个微小的点来产生极端的电磁场。这些场能够在不到百万分之一秒的时间内将带电粒子加速到接近光速，产生明亮的点状辐射源。在如此强的场中，高能伽马射线可以自发地衰变成物质-反物质粒子对，从而从光中产生物质。该项目将为 ZEUS 设施设计实验，通过链式反应测量物质的产生和过程的放大。 该项目将为研究生提供支持，并能够研究密集和超短持续时间的反物质束。ZEUS 激光设施将通过激光尾场加速产生几千兆电子伏的电子束，这是一种利用加速场结构产生电子束的方法在高功率超短脉冲激光的作用下在等离子体中产生。通过将电子束与第二个紧密聚焦的高功率激光脉冲碰撞，场强预计将大大超过电子静止框架中量子电动力学的临界场，从而产生电子-正电子对。研究生将参与设计和建造用于 ZEUS 实验的粒子探测器、用于控制稳定单能光束注入和引导激光以实现多 GeV 能量的等离子体目标，并使用先进的量子动力学代码对激光电子碰撞物理进行建模。了解激光相互作用物理对于前沿 ZEUS 实验的成功至关重要。在该项目的最后一年，ZEUS 激光时间预计将用于该前沿实验的首次运行。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查进行评估，被认为值得支持标准。

项目成果

Intense gamma-ray source based on focused electron beams from a laser wakefield accelerator

• DOI: 10.1063/5.0095576
• 发表时间: 2022-06
• 期刊: Applied Physics Letters
• 影响因子: 4
• 作者: V. Senthilkumaran;D. Bailie;K. Behm;J. Warwick;G. M. Samarin;A. Maksimchuk;J. Nees;A. Thomas;G. Sarri;K. Krushelnick;A. Hussein

Kinetic theory for spin-polarized relativistic plasmas

• DOI: 10.1063/5.0165836
• 发表时间: 2023-07
• 期刊: Physics of Plasmas
• 影响因子: 2.2
• 作者: D. Seipt;A. Thomas