Related papers: Laser-driven vacuum breakdown waves
We study the effects of the quantum vacuum on the propagation of a Gaussian laser beam in vacuum. By means of a double perturbative expansion in paraxiality and quantum vacuum terms, we provide analytical expressions for the self-induced…
Intense ultrashort laser pulses propagating through an underdense plasma are able to drive relativistic plasma waves, creating accelerating structures with extreme gradients. These structures represent a new type of compact sources for…
Recent experimental and theoretical results have demonstrated the possibility of accelerating electrons in the MeV range by focusing tightly a few-cycle laser beam in ambient air. Using Particle-In-Cell (PIC) simulations, this configuration…
It is conjectured that all perturbative approaches to quantum electrodynamics (QED) break down in the collision of a high-energy electron beam with an intense laser, when the laser fields are boosted to `supercritical' strengths far greater…
The extreme electric fields created in high-intensity laser-plasma interactions could generate energetic ions far more compactly than traditional accelerators. Despite this promise, laser-plasma accelerators have remained stagnant at…
We consider interaction of a high-energy electron beam with two counterpropagating femtosecond laser pulses. Nonlinear Compton scattering and electron-positron pair production by the emitted photons result in development of an…
The localized deposition of the energy of a laser pulse, as it ablates a solid target, introduces high thermal pressure gradients in the plasma. The thermal expansion of this laser-heated plasma into the ambient medium (ionized residual…
The plasma dynamics resulting from the simultaneous impact, of two equal, ultra-intense laser pulses, in two spatially separated spots, onto a dense target is studied via particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations. The simulations show that…
In simulations of a 12.5PW laser (focused intensity I = 4x10^23W/cm^2) striking a solid aluminium target 10% of the laser energy is converted to gamma-rays. A dense electron-positron plasma is generated with a maximum density of 10^26/m^3;…
We study quantum electrodynamics (QED) in the light-front dynamical form by using null-plane causal perturbation theory. We establish the equivalence with instant dynamics for the scattering processes, whose normalization allows to…
We consider strong-field effects in laboratory and astrophysical plasmas and high intensity laser and cavity systems. Current state-of-the-art laser facilities are close to reaching energy scales at which quantum electrodynamics will play a…
The electron-positron pair production accompanying interaction of a circularly polarized laser pulse with a foil is studied for laser intensities higher than $10^{24}$W cm$^{-2}$. The laser energy penetrates into the foil due to the effect…
Metre-scale plasma wakefield accelerators have imparted energy gain approaching 10 gigaelectronvolts to single nano-Coulomb electron bunches. To reach useful average currents, however, the enormous energy density that the driver deposits…
A novel approach for positron injection and acceleration in laser driven plasma wakefield is proposed. A theoretical model is developed and confirmed through PIC simulation. One ring-shaped beam and one co-axially propagating Gaussian beam…
We carry out 3D and 2D PIC-simulations of the expansion of a magnetized plasma that initially uniformly fills a half-space and contains a semi-cylindrical region of heated electrons elongated along the surface of the plasma boundary. This…
A cascaded ion acceleration scheme is proposed by use of ultrashort laser-irradiated microtubes. When the electrons of a microtube are blown away by intense laser pulses, strong charge-separation electric fields are formed in the microtube…
Electromagnetic cascades attract a lot of attention as an important QED effect that will reveal itself in various electromagnetic field configurations at ultrahigh intensities. We study cascade dynamics in rotating electric field…
We propose a new approach to high-intensity laser-driven electron acceleration in a plasma. Here, we demonstrate that a plasma wave generated by a stimulated forward-scattering of an incident laser pulse can be in a longest acceleration…
Laser-driven collisonless electrostatic shock formation and the subsequent ion acceleration have been studied in near critical density plasmas. Particle-in-cell simulations show that both the speed of laser-driven collisionless…
We investigate the propagation of ultra-short laser pulses in atomic rubidium vapor. The pulses are intensive enough to ionize the atoms and are directly resonant with the 780 nm $D_2$ line. We derive a relatively simple theory for…