Probing Super-Critical Electromagnetic Fields with Petawatt Lasers

用拍瓦激光器探测超临界电磁场

• 批准号: 2108075
• 负责人: Alexander Thomas
• 金额: $ 60万
• 依托单位: Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-06-01 至 2024-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2108075&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Probing; Super; Critical; Electromagnetic; Fields

This project supports efforts to design experiments for the new National Science Foundation-funded high intensity Zettawatt-Equivalent Ultrashort pulse laser System (ZEUS) facility. High peak-power lasers, such as the ZEUS multi-Petawatt laser can generate extreme electromagnetic fields through focusing the power down to a tiny spot. These fields are capable of accelerating charged particles to near the speed of light in a fraction of a million billionth of a second, producing bright, point-like sources of radiation. In such strong fields, high-energy gamma-rays can spontaneously decay into pairs of matter-antimatter particles, leading to matter creation from light. This project will design experiments for the ZEUS facility to measure matter creation and amplification of the process through a chain reaction. The project will support graduate students and should enable a study of dense and ultrashort duration beams of antimatter.The ZEUS laser facility will generate few-gigaelectronvolt electron beams through laser wakefield acceleration, which is a method for generating beams of electrons using the accelerating field structure produced in a plasma in the wake of a high-power, ultrashort pulsed laser. By colliding the electron beam with a second, tightly focused, high-power laser pulse, the field strength is expected to greatly exceed the critical field of quantum electrodynamics in the electron rest frame, leading to electron-positron pair production. Graduate students will participate in designing and building particle detectors for ZEUS experiments, the plasma target for controlled injection of stable monoenergetic beams and guiding of the laser to achieve multi-GeV energies, and modelling the laser-electron collision physics using advanced quantum kinetic codes. Understanding the laser interaction physics is crucial for the frontier ZEUS experiments to be successful. In the final year of the project, laser time with ZEUS is anticipated to be available for the first runs for this frontier experiment.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该项目支持为新的国家科学基金会资助的高强度泽瓦当量超短脉冲激光系统（ZEUS）设施设计实验。高峰值功率激光器，如宙斯多佩瓦激光器，可以通过将功率聚焦到一个微小的点来产生极端的电磁场。这些场能够在十亿分之一秒的时间内将带电粒子加速到接近光速，产生明亮的点状辐射源。在如此强的磁场中，高能伽马射线可以自发地衰变成一对对物质-反物质粒子，从而导致光产生物质。该项目将为ZEUS设施设计实验，通过连锁反应测量物质产生和放大过程。该项目将为研究生提供支持，并将使研究密集和超短持续时间的反物质光束成为可能。ZEUS激光设备将通过激光尾流场加速产生几千兆电子伏特的电子束，这是一种利用高功率超短脉冲激光尾流中等离子体产生的加速场结构产生电子束的方法。通过将电子束与第二个紧密聚焦的高功率激光脉冲碰撞，预计场强将大大超过电子静止框架中量子电动力学的临界场，从而导致电子-正电子对的产生。研究生将参与设计和建造用于ZEUS实验的粒子探测器，用于控制注入稳定单能束和引导激光以达到多gev能量的等离子体靶，以及使用先进的量子动力学代码模拟激光-电子碰撞物理。了解激光相互作用物理是前沿ZEUS实验成功的关键。在项目的最后一年，ZEUS的激光时间预计将用于这个前沿实验的第一次运行。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

项目成果

Intense gamma-ray source based on focused electron beams from a laser wakefield accelerator

• DOI: 10.1063/5.0095576
• 发表时间: 2022-06
• 期刊: Applied Physics Letters
• 影响因子: 4
• 作者: V. Senthilkumaran;D. Bailie;K. Behm;J. Warwick;G. M. Samarin;A. Maksimchuk;J. Nees;A. Thomas;G. Sarri;K. Krushelnick;A. Hussein

Kinetic theory for spin-polarized relativistic plasmas

• DOI: 10.1063/5.0165836
• 发表时间: 2023-07
• 期刊: Physics of Plasmas
• 影响因子: 2.2
• 作者: D. Seipt;A. Thomas