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

该奖项由美国国家科学基金会和捷克科学基金会（GACR）合作，支持密歇根大学、劳伦斯伯克利国家实验室和捷克共和国ELI-Beamlines的专业知识合作，开发用于高功率激光设备建模实验的工具。随着激光技术的快速发展，高功率激光设备可以通过将激光聚焦到一个微小的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，从而从光中产生物质。该项目将进一步为研究更极端的激光强度开辟一条道路，旨在开发制造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，并研究研究强场量子电动力学现象的实验条件。博士后研究员将整合相互作用点物理建模代码。这将有助于详细研究电子谱的量子展宽、极化和自旋效应，并确定研究雪崩和阵雨型级联的激光设备的要求。这将使现有激光设备的实验设计成为可能，包括eli光束线。该项目还将为轻子-光子等离子体的产生和行为绘制路径，并在密歇根大学的NSF ZEUS激光设施和捷克共和国的ELI-Beamlines之间建立研究合作。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。

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.