Related papers: Relativistic light sails need to billow
Gravitationally lensed quasars offer a unique opportunity to study cosmological and extragalactic phenomena, using reliable light curves of the lensed images. This requires accurate deblending of the quasar images, which is not trivial due…
Tightly-focused, ultrashort radially-polarized laser beams have a large longitudinal field, which provides a strong motivation for direct particle acceleration and manipulation in vacuum. The broadband nature of these beams means that…
Testing the distance-sum-rule in strong lensing systems provides an interesting method to determine the curvature parameter $\Omega_k$ using more local objects. In this paper, we apply this method to a quite recent data set of strong…
Direct laser acceleration of electrons in ion channels is investigated in a general case when the laser phase velocity is greater than (or equal to) the speed of light. Using the similarity of the equations of motion for ultra-relativistic…
We propose a new type of superradiant laser based on a hot atomic beam traversing an optical cavity. We show that the theoretical minimum linewidth and maximum power are competitive with the best ultracoherent clock lasers. Also, our system…
Like light, gravitational waves can be gravitationally lensed by massive astrophysical objects. Strong gravitational lensing by galaxies and galaxy clusters is anticipated to become observable in the coming years. This phenomenon will…
The dynamics of electrons in counter-propagating, circularly polarized laser beams are shown to exhibit attractors whose ability to trap particles depends on the ratio of the beam intensities and a single parameter describing radiation…
Focusing petawatt-level laser beams to a variety of spot sizes for different applications is expensive in cost, labor and space. In this paper, we propose a plasma lens to flexibly resize the laser beam by utilizing the laser self-focusing…
The latest high-performance telescopes for deep space observation employ very large primary mirrors that are made of smaller segments, like the JWST which employs monolithic beryllium hexagonal segments. A very promising development stage…
We review results from our monitoring observations of several lensed quasars performed in the optical, UV, and X-ray bands. Modeling of the multi-wavelength light curves provides constraints on the extent of the optical, UV, and X-ray…
We present a microscopic laser model for many atoms coupled to a single cavity mode, including the light forces resulting from atom-field momentum exchange. Within a semiclassical description, we solve the equations for atomic motion and…
Just as the ordinary Doppler effect serves as a tool to measure radial velocities of celestial objects, so can the relativistic Doppler effect be implemented to measure a combination of radial and transverse velocities by using recent…
Aims: We investigate the stellar pancake mechanism during which a solar-type star is tidally flattened within its orbital plane passing close to a 10^6 solar masses black hole. We simulate the relativistic orthogonal compression process and…
In this paper it is presented the concept and design of a new type of spacecraft that could be used to make the first manned interstellar travel. Solar one would integrate three near-term technologies, namely: compact nuclear fusion…
We present the generalised design of low-complexity, small aperture optical terminals intended for kilometre-scale, terrestrial, free-space laser links between fixed and dynamic targets. The design features single-mode fibre coupling of the…
We find a new Tully-Fisher-like relation for spiral galaxies holding at different galactocentric radii. This Radial Tully-Fisher (RTF) relation allows us to investigate the distribution of matter in the optical regions of spiral galaxies.…
We have developed a new technique called Direct Shear Mapping (DSM) to measure gravitational lensing shear directly from observations of a single background source. The technique assumes the velocity map of an un-lensed, stably-rotating…
Tidal forces acting on orbiting bodies arise from inhomogeneities in the gravitational field, generating stresses that can deform or even disrupt these objects. In this work, we analyze relativistic tidal forces associated with ultracompact…
A unified parametrization of the circular velocity, which accurately fits 850 galaxy rotation curves without needing in advance the knowledge of the luminous matter components, nor a fixed dark matter halo model, is proposed. A notable…
Light-in-flight (LIF) imaging is the measurement and reconstruction of light's path as it moves and interacts with objects. It is well known that relativistic effects can result in apparent velocities that differ significantly from the…