Related papers: Optimizing Laser-Plasma Interactions for Ion Accel…
We present the results of 3D particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations that explore relativistic magnetic reconnection in pair plasma with strong synchrotron cooling and a small mass fraction of non-radiating ions. Our results demonstrate that the…
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…
Compared with conventional accelerators, laser plasma accelerators can generate high energy ions at a greatly reduced scale, due to their TV/m acceleration gradient. A compact laser plasma accelerator (CLAPA) has been built at the Institute…
Modern ultra-intense laser facilities can generate electromagnetic fields strong enough to accelerate particles to near-light speeds over micron-scale distances and also approach the QED critical field, resulting in highly nonlinear and…
We review common extensions of particle-in-cell (PIC) schemes which account for strong field phenomena in laser-plasma interactions. After describing the physical processes of interest and their numerical implementation, we provide…
We propose a novel scheme for controlling the injection of a high-quality electron bunch into a channel-guided laser plasma accelerator. This all-optical technique, constricted waveguide injection, creates a highly tunable controlled…
Proton (and ion) cancer therapy has proven to be an extremely effective even supe-rior method of treatment for some tumors 1-4. A major problem, however, lies in the cost of the particle accelerator facilities; high procurement costs…
Particle transport, acceleration and energisation are phenomena of major importance for both space and laboratory plasmas. Despite years of study, an accurate theoretical description of these effects is still lacking. Validating models with…
Proton acceleration by high-intensity laser pulses from ultra-thin foils for hadron therapy is discussed. With the improvement of the laser intensity contrast ratio to 10-11 achieved on Hercules laser at the University of Michigan, it…
Theoretical study of heavy ion acceleration from ultrathin (<200 nm) gold foils irradiated by a short pulse laser is presented. Using two dimensional particle-in-cell simulations the time history of the laser bullet is examined in order to…
Beam parameter optimization in accelerators involves multiple, sometimes competing objectives. Condensing these individual objectives into a single figure of merit unavoidably results in a bias towards particular outcomes, in absence of…
The dynamics of electron injection in the direct laser acceleration (DLA) regime was investigated by means of three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations and theoretical analysis. It is shown that when an ultra-intense laser pulse…
The generation of super-high energetic electrons influenced by pre-plasma at relativistic intensity laser-matter interaction is studied in a one-dimensional slab approximation with particle-in-cell simulations. Different pre-plasma…
In a laser wakefield accelerator (LWFA), an intense laser pulse excites a plasma wave that traps and accelerates electrons to relativistic energies. When the pulse overlaps the accelerated electrons, it can enhance the energy gain through…
In this study, a novel method for simulating plasma dynamics using parallel programming has been developed. The equations based on Particle-in-Cell (PIC) method were utilized and adapted for this purpose. We utilized 35 processors from…
The generation of compact, high-energy ion beams is one of the most promising applications of intense laser-matter interactions, but the control of the beam spectral quality remains an outstanding challenge. We show that in radiation…
In this work, the high-energy-density plasmas (HEDP) evolved from joule-class-femtosecond-laser-irradiated nanowire array (NWA) targets are numerically and experimentally studied. The particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations indicate that ions…
Laser-electron beam collisions that aim to generate electron-positron pairs require laser intensities $I \gtrsim 10^{21} ~\textrm{W/cm}^2$, which can be obtained by focusing a 1-PW optical laser to a spot smaller than 10 $~\mu$m. Spatial…
Generation of highly-polarized high-energy brilliant $\gamma$-rays via laser-plasma interaction has been investigated in the quantum radiation-reaction regime. We employ a quantum-electrodynamics particle-in-cell code to describe…
Laser spectroscopic studies on minute samples of exotic radioactive nuclei require very efficient experimental techniques. In addition, high resolving powers are required to allow extraction of nu- clear structure information. Here we…