Related papers: Controlling the interaction of tightly focused 10-…
Since its birth, the laser has been extraordinarily effective in the study and applications of laser-matter interaction at the atomic and molecular level and in the nonlinear optics of the bound electron. In its early life, the laser was…
Interaction of a frequency-chirped laser pulse with single protons and a hydrogen plasma cell is studied analytically and by means of particle-in-cell simulations, respectively. Feasibility of generating ultra-intense (10^7 particles per…
During the past decade, the interaction of high-intensity lasers with solid targets has attracted much interest, regarding its potential in accelerating charged particles. In spite of tremendous progress in laser-plasma based acceleration,…
Relativistic electrons generated by the interaction of petawatt-class short laser pulses with solid targets can be used to generate bright X-rays via bremsstrahlung. The efficiency of laser energy transfer into these electrons depends on…
Although existing technology cannot yet directly produce fields at the Schwinger level, experimental facilities can already explore strong-field QED phenomena by taking advantage of the Lorentz boost of energetic electron beams. Recent…
High-energy spin-polarized electron, positron, and $\gamma$-photon beams have many significant applications in the study of material properties, nuclear structure, particle physics, and high-energy astrophysics. Thus,efficient production of…
Electromagnetic showers from high-energy electron beams interacting with a target are a promising path to creating pair plasmas in the laboratory. Here, we solve analytically the kinetic equations describing this process. Two regimes are…
Creation of electrons and positrons from light alone is a basic prediction of quantum electrodynamics, but yet to be observed. Here we show that it is possible to create ${>}10^8$ positrons by dual laser irradiation of a structured plasma…
Upcoming high-intensity laser systems will be able to probe the quantum-induced nonlinear regime of electrodynamics. So far unobserved QED phenomena such as the discovery of a nonlinear response of the quantum vacuum to macroscopic…
In the electron-driven fast-ignition approach to inertial confinement fusion, petawatt laser pulses are required to generate MeV electrons that deposit several tens of kilojoules in the compressed core of an imploded DT shell. We review…
Ultra-short high-power lasers can deliver extreme light intensities ($\ge 10^{20}$ W/cm$^2$ and $\leq 30 f$s) and drive large amplitude Surface Plasma Wave (SPW) at over-dense plasma surface. The resulting current of energetic electron has…
We present the results of kinetic modelling of quantum effects in laser-beam interaction. In the developed numerical model, electron-positron pair production by hard photons, hard photon emission and the electromagnetic fields generated by…
Direct studies of intense laser-solid interactions is still of great challenges, because of the many coupled physical mechanisms, such as direct laser heating, ionization dynamics, collision among charged particles, and electrostatic or…
The upcoming $10-100$ petawatt laser facilities may deliver laser pulses with unprecedented intensity of $10^{22}-10^{25}\rm~W cm^{-2}$, which can trigger various nonlinear quantum electrodynamic processes in plasma. For effective laser…
The physics of energy transfer between the laser and the plasma in laser wakefield accelerators is studied. We find that wake excitation by arbitrary laser shapes can be parameterized using the total pulse energy and pulse depletion length.…
We model numerically the ultrarelativistic dynamics of a dense plasma microtarget in a focus of several intersecting femtosecond laser pulses of multi-petawatt power each. The aim is to examine perspective future experimental approaches to…
Ultrarelativistic electron-positron plasmas can be produced in high-intensity laser fields and play a role in various astrophysical situations. Their properties can be calculated using QED at finite temperature. Here we will use…
As new laser facilities are developed with intensities on the scale of 10^22 - 10^24 W cm^-2 , it becomes ever more important to understand the effect of strong field quantum electrodynamics processes, such as quantum radiation reaction,…
We investigate by particle-in-cell simulations in two and three dimensions the laser-plasma interaction and the proton acceleration in multilayer targets where a low density "near-critical" layer of a few micron thickness is added on the…
Relativistic laser pulses can accelerate electrons up to energies of several GeV during the interaction with gaseous targets through the direct laser acceleration (DLA) mechanism. While the electrons are accelerated to high energies, they…