SUSSP68 International Summer School in Laser-Plasma Interactions and Applications

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

This proposal is for partial funding of an international Summer School on 'Laser-Plasma Interactions and Applications' to be held from 15 to 27 August 2011 at the University of Strathclyde. The School is the 68th in the Scottish Universities Summer Schools in Physics (SUSSP) series and the 7th on the topic of laser-plasma interactions. The last held on this topic took place in 2005. The School will also be run as part of the established NATO Advanced Studies Institute (ASI) series and is aimed at young researchers in the final years of their PhD or the early years of post-doctoral research. It is planned to host around 80 national and international students over a 12-day period and provide 38 lectures by 16 lecturers. Additional activities (numerical simulation and knowledge transfer workshops, panel discussions and a poster session) will also be provided. The school will bring together leading experts from Europe, the USA, Russia and Israel to lecture on the fundamental and applied aspects of high power laser-plasma physics. It will begin with an overview and the theory of the interactions of intense laser radiation with matter. The physics of laser-plasma accelerators will be covered in detail, including recent progress and potential applications. Cross disciplinary topics including applications to industry, medicine and security, and other areas of science including high field science and nuclear physics will also be addressed. The physics of inertial confinement fusion and its potential as an energy source will be covered, including the fast ignition approach. The school will also include other aspects of EPSRC-funded plasma physics research including, for example, plasma instabilities and materials for fusion reactors. The proposed comprehensive training that will be offered by the School could not be effectively provided by individual institutions. No comparable training programme exists with this level of coverage of laser-plasma interactions and applications. There is a strategic need for training in this area, with the establishment of EPSRC-funded research consortia on laser-plasma accelerators (Alpha-X and LIBRA), the UK-led HiPER laser-fusion project and the Extreme Light Infrastructure, ELI, which is currently being set up.