Related papers: Simplest AB-Thermonuclear Space Propulsion and Ele…
Until recently, only science-fiction authors ventured to use a term teleportation. However, in the last few years, on the eve of upcoming new millennium, the situation changed very much. The present report gives a synopsis of main concepts…
Laser-plasma acceleration is an emerging technique for accelerating electrons to high energies over very short distances. The accelerated electron bunches have femtosecond duration, making them particularly relevant for applications such as…
A forefront area of research concerns the exploration of the properties of hadronic matter under extreme conditions of temperature and density, and the determination of the equation of state--the relation between pressure, temperature and…
Pulsed laser ablation propulsion has the potential to revolutionize space exploration by eliminating the requirement of a spacecraft to carry its propellant and power source as the high-power laser is situated off-board. More…
At a distance of about 4.22 lightyears, it would take about 100,000 years for humans to visit our closest stellar neighbor Proxima Centauri using modern chemical thrusters. New technologies are now being developed that involve high-power…
Charged particle accelerators play a pivotal role in scientific research, industry, and medical applications. Among them, radiofrequency (RF) accelerators offer a promising approach for achieving high-energy particle acceleration in compact…
Various fields, including medical and human interaction robots, gain advantages from the development of bioinspired soft actuators. Many recently developed grippers are pneumatics that require external pressure supply systems, thereby…
This paper presents a novel micropropulsion system for nanosatellite applications - a liquid fed pulsed-plasma thruster (LF-PPT) comprised of a Lorentz-force pulsed plasma accelerator (PPA) and a low-energy surface flashover (LESF) igniter.…
Laser-accelerated lightsails enable new types of missions that are very different from the Breakthrough Starshot mission to the Centauri system that aims to send 1 gram of payload at 0.2 c. The present work widens the mission design space…
The Magnetic Sail is a space propulsion system that utilizes the interaction between solar wind particles and an artificial dipole magnetic field generated by a spacecraft's coil to produce thrust without the need for additional plasma or…
Solid-state heat-to-electrical power converters are thermodynamic engines that use fundamental particles, such as electrons or photons, as working fluids. Virtually all commercially available devices are thermoelectric generators, in which…
The main goal of this thesis is to study the physical processes that can produce non-thermal emission at high energies in astrophysical objects capable to accelerate particles up to relativistic velocities. In particular, we have studied…
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…
We examine the properties of the atmospheres of extrasolar giant planets at orbital distances smaller than 0.1 AU from their stars. We show that these ``51Peg b-like'' planets are rapidly synchronized by tidal interactions, but that small…
The newly born millisecond pulsars are investigated as possible energy sources for creating ultra-high energy electrons. The transfer of energy from the star rotation to high energy electrons takes place through the Landau damping of…
A new breakthrough in jet propulsion technology since the invention of the jet engine is achieved. The first critical tests for future air-breathing magneto-plasma propulsion systems have been successfully completed. In this regard, it is…
The electric solar wind sail (E-sail) is a novel, efficient propellantless propulsion concept which utilises the natural solar wind for spacecraft propulsion with the help of long centrifugally stretched charged tethers. The E-sail requires…
We develop a theory of particle acceleration inside relativistic rotating electron-positron force-free jets with spiral magnetic fields. We considered perturbation of the stationary magnetic field structure and found that acceleration takes…
A Brownian particle moving in the vicinity of a generic potential minimum under the influence of dissipation and thermal noise from two different heat baths is shown to act as a minimal heat engine, generating a systematic torque onto the…
The possibility of fusion ignition in proton-Boron$^{11}$ plasma is strongly enhanced if the energy from the fusion-produced $\alpha$ particles is channeled to fast protons, but in an environment in which most of the protons are thermally…