MRI: Acquisition of a 100 Terawatt Laser Upgrade for Application to Basic and Applied Plasma Physics

该项目将升级马里兰大学现有的激光系统，使其输出脉冲能量增加四倍，从而使在桌面上进行广泛的相对论物理实验成为可能。实验将主要由学生和博士后进行，并将包括在更大的激光设备中通常进行的实验类型。这些实验对先进带电粒子加速器、强激光脉冲传播、超高场非线性光学和等离子体物理的发展和应用具有重要的基础和实际意义。学生和博士后在运行和维护激光系统以及执行和分析实验方面所获得的实践培训，对于科学、工业和国防日益重要的技术领域的劳动力发展将是无价的。根据马里兰大学在一个千兆瓦级激光设备上开发的激光加速方案的最新实验，预计马里兰大学升级后的激光系统将能够将电子加速到超过10亿电子伏特（1 GeV），相当于接近光速。这将使桌面x射线和伽马射线光源及其应用成为可能。同时，升级后的系统所增加的激光能量将推动难以进入的波长范围（如太赫兹辐射）的高效辐射源的发展。它还将使实验室天体物理学实验成为可能，包括在相对论体系中进行一类新的磁重联实验。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 project will upgrade the existing laser system at the University of Maryland to increase its output pulse energy by a factor of four, making possible a wide range of relativistic physics experiments on a tabletop. The experiments will be run mainly by students and postdocs and will include the types of experiments typically done at much larger laser facilities. These experiments are of both fundamental and practical interest for the development and application of advanced charged particle accelerators, intense laser pulse propagation, and ultra-high field nonlinear optics and plasma physics. The hands-on student and postdoc training obtained in running and maintaining the laser system, and performing and analyzing the experiments, will be invaluable for the development of a workforce in technical areas of increasing importance for science, industry and national defense.Based on recent experiments employing a Maryland-developed laser acceleration scheme at a petawatt-class laser facility, it is expected that the upgraded laser system at the University of Maryland will be able to accelerate electrons to over one billion electron volts (1 GeV), corresponding to nearly the speed of light. This will make possible tabletop x-ray and gamma ray light sources and their applications. In parallel efforts, the increased laser energy of the upgraded system will drive the development of efficient sources of radiation in hard-to-access wavelength regimes, such as terahertz radiation. It will also make possible experiments in laboratory astrophysics, including a new class of magnetic reconnection experiments in the relativistic regime.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.