Target Plasma Generation for Plasma Acceleration and Associated Electromagnetic Pulse Dynamics

用于等离子体加速和相关电磁脉冲动力学的目标等离子体生成

• 批准号: 2206647
• 负责人: John Cary
• 金额: $ 42.5万
• 依托单位: University of Colorado at Boulder
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-07-01 至 2025-06-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2206647&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Target; Plasma; Generation; Acceleration; Associated

The research enabled by this award will advance understanding of particle acceleration in plasmas driven by lasers. Laser-driven plasma acceleration holds out the promise of dramatic miniaturization and cost reduction of charged particle accelerators, which have uses in scientific discovery, homeland security, and medicine. The reduction in cost would broaden the availability of such accelerators to make them commonplace at individual universities and hospitals. This project will attempt to further reduce complexity of accelerators by using low-density plasmas to accelerate particles to higher energies. This would reduce the need for using multiple accelerators sequentially to get particles to higher energy. The project will also engage members of demographic groups historically under-represented in physics, increasing the number of role models for the next generations of aspiring plasma physics researchers.This project will enable a study of optical field ionization generated plasma channels for particle acceleration in Laser Wake-Field Acceleration (LWFA). LWFA accelerates electrons to high energies in short distances by exciting large electric field oscillations in a plasma with an intense laser pulse. The project will cover three aspects of LWFA: (1) accurate simulations of the plasma channel formation, (2) determination of the characteristics of the generated electromagnetic pulse, and (3) full and coupled simulations of wake-field acceleration with the evolving plasma channel. The full, coupled simulations of the laser accelerating pulse propagation through the evolving channel will create a tool to provide input into the development of future LWFA systems.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.

该奖项促成的研究将增进对激光驱动等离子体中粒子加速的理解。 激光驱动的等离子体加速有望实现带电粒子加速器的大幅小型化和成本降低，这些加速器可用于科学发现、国土安全和医学。 成本的降低将扩大此类加速器的可用性，使其在各个大学和医院中变得司空见惯。 该项目将尝试通过使用低密度等离子体将粒子加速到更高能量来进一步降低加速器的复杂性。这将减少顺序使用多个加速器以使粒子获得更高能量的需要。 该项目还将吸引历史上在物理学领域代表性不足的人口群体成员，为下一代有抱负的等离子体物理研究人员增加榜样的数量。该项目将能够研究光场电离产生的等离子体通道，用于激光中的粒子加速尾流场加速 (LWFA)。 LWFA 通过用强激光脉冲激发等离子体中的大电场振荡，将电子在短距离内加速到高能量。该项目将涵盖 LWFA 的三个方面：(1) 等离子体通道形成的精确模拟，(2) 确定所生成的电磁脉冲的特性，以及 (3) 尾流场加速与不断演化的等离子体的完整耦合模拟渠道。 对激光加速脉冲通过不断演变的通道传播的完整耦合模拟将创建一个工具，为未来 LWFA 系统的开发提供输入。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势进行评估，被认为值得支持以及更广泛的影响审查标准。