NSF-GACR: Strong Field QED Plasma Physics at PetaWatt-Class Laser Facilities

该奖项由NSF和捷克科学基金会(GACR)合作，支持一项合作，该合作结合了密歇根大学、劳伦斯·伯克利国家实验室和捷克共和国的ELI-Beamline的专业知识，为高功率激光设施的实验建模开发工具。随着最近激光技术的快速进步，高功率激光设备可以通过将激光聚焦到一个微小的光点来产生宇宙中一些最极端的电磁场。这些场可以在十亿分之一秒内将带电粒子加速到接近光速，产生明亮的点状辐射源。在这样的强场中，高能伽马射线可以自发衰变成成对的物质-反物质粒子，从而从光中产生物质。该项目将进一步规划一条研究更极端激光强度的途径，旨在开发制作密集和超短持续时间的反物质光束的方法。该项目将开发所需的理论工具，并调查实验研究强场量子电动力学现象的条件。一名博士后研究人员将整合对相互作用点物理建模的代码。这将有助于详细研究电子光谱的量子展宽、极化和自旋效应，并确定研究雪崩和簇射类型级联的激光设备的要求。这将使在现有激光设施，包括ELI-光束线上进行实验设计成为可能。该项目还将绘制轻子-光子等离子体的产生和行为的路径，并在密歇根大学的NSF宙斯激光设备和捷克共和国的Eli-Beamline之间建立研究合作。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award, enabled by the partnership between NSF and the Czech Science Foundation (GACR), supports a collaboration that combines expertise from the University of Michigan, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and ELI-Beamlines in the Czech Republic to develop tools for modeling experiments at high power laser facilities. With rapid recent progress in laser technology, high-power laser facilities can generate some of the most extreme electromagnetic fields in the universe by focusing the laser light down to a tiny spot. These fields can accelerate 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, thus creating matter from light. This project will further chart a path to studying even more extreme laser intensities, aiming to develop ways to make dense and ultrashort duration beams of antimatter.This project will develop the required theoretical tools and investigate the conditions for experiments studying strong field quantum electrodynamics phenomena. A postdoctoral researcher will integrate codes for modeling the interaction point physics. This will enable detailed studies of quantum broadening of the electron spectrum, polarization and spin effects and determining the requirements for a laser facility to study avalanche- and shower-type cascades. This will enable design of experiments at existing laser facilities, including ELI-Beamlines. The project will also chart a path to the generation and behavior of lepton-photon plasma and establish a research collaboration between the NSF ZEUS Laser Facility at the University of Michigan and ELI-Beamlines in the Czech Republic.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.