Numerical plasma physics for the beauty of complexity and for novel applications

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Plasmas have an incredibly wide range of scientific and practical applications in our modern societies, ranging from astrophysics to nanofabrication, and from nuclear fusion to sterilization of medical instruments, surface functionalization and home lighting. Plasmas are known to be very complex due to the interaction between several particle species, including positively and negatively charged ions, atoms, molecules, radicals, electrons, photons, and eventually nanoparticles, and to its high responsivity to self-induced and external electromagnetic fields, including laser fields. In particular, electrons, due to their small mass, generally have a complicated energy distribution but knowing it is essential to quantify most critical processes taking place in plasmas. For this reason, numerical modeling has always been an intrinsic and essential component of plasma physics. This research program aims at developing further several aspects of numerical plasma physics, some of which are already ongoing and done in collaboration with experimentalists. The planned research relates particularly to time-dependent discharge plasmas and to laser-plasma interaction, at both high and low intensity. The benefits of this research will include for instance the understanding (i) of pulsed plasma discharges, which show different properties with respect to stationary plasmas, (ii) of the growth and transport processes of nanoparticles in magnetized plasmas for applications to surface functionalization, astrophysics and space science, (iii) of ultrashort laser pulse amplification for accessing new ultra-high intensity regimes, and (iv) of laser-induced plasma spectroscopy for mining exploration.