Collaborative Research: An Experimental Study of Relativistic, Stochastic Heating of Electrons During the Irradiation of Wavelength-Scale Plasmas by a Strong-Laser Field

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Collaborative Research: An Experimental Study of Relativistic, Stochastic Heating of Electrons During the Irradiation of Wavelength-scale Plasmas by a Strong-Laser FieldA renewal proposal from PIs T. Ditmire (University of Texas) and T. Donnelly (Harvey Mudd College)Scientific MeritThis grant supports a collaboration between Prof. Ditmire at the University of Texas at Austin (UT) and Prof. Donnelly at Harvey Mudd College (HMC), an undergraduate institution. We will investigate mechanisms by which high-intensity laser pulses deposit energy into matter. While the nature of intense laser interactions with atoms, molecules, and solids has been studied for many years, exactly how intense laser pulses interact with objects that are of a spatial scale comparable to the light's wavelength (less than a millionth of a meter) is largely unexplored. We will focus a 20 TW laser - a laser with nearly ten times the power of that on the entire US electrical grid - onto wavelength-scale targets and study the resulting electron and ions energies to study the mechanisms by which laser energy is absorbed by the target. The scientific merit of this work rests in filling this gap in our knowledge of physics, and in developing improved x-ray and neutron sources. Broader ImpactThe broader scientific impacts of this research rest in advancing the understanding of high-intensity laser interactions with a class of targets not previously well explored. Application of these studies may aid in the development of improved x-ray sources for radiography and time-resolved diffraction, or compact neutron sources for imaging other systems. The broader educational impact of this work is found in the training that both graduate and undergraduate students will receive. Our work represents a unique collaboration in which an undergraduate group is directly and critically involved in strong-field-physics research, a field which is prohibitively resource intensive for an undergraduate research program to pursue alone. The undergraduates funded by this grant will have the opportunity to do research at HMC, travel to UT in the summers to participate in research using equipment they have developed, and travel to conferences to present their work to the scientific community. Our collaboration will continue to be an effective way to motivate undergraduates to seek advanced degrees in science.