CRITICAL MASS: Collective radiation-beam-plasma interactions at high intensities

本提案描述了在高场强下的单粒子和集体辐射束-等离子体相互作用的研究计划，飞行秒到阿秒持续时间的高亮度粒子束的产生，紧凑和廉价的相干和非相干辐射的新来源，加速粒子的新方法，可以使它们广泛使用，并通过扩大它们的参数范围，刺激新的应用领域。这项建议的一个重要补充将是一个应用这些来源的方案，以证明它们的有用性，并提供一种使工业和其他最终用户参与的方法。该项目建立在先前对先进激光等离子体高能x射线加速器（ALPHA-X）项目的实验和理论研究的基础上，该项目已经证明了激光等离子体尾流场加速器（LWFA）的可控加速度，LWFA光束的初始应用以及LWFA中共振电子加速器运动产生伽马射线的演示。通过发展对辐射物质相互作用的高度非线性和集体物理学的理解，该方案将具有广泛的相关性，涉及从天体物理学、核聚变和核物理到辐射与生物物质的相互作用等领域。它还将涉及物理学中的几个基本问题，如等离子体介质中的辐射反应和非线性耦合系统中相干性的发展。

This proposal describes a programme of research on single-particle and collective radiation-beam-plasma interactions at high field intensities, production of high-brightness particle beams with femtosecond to attosecond duration, new sources of coherent and incoherent radiation that are both compact and inexpensive, new methods of accelerating particles which could make them widely available and, by extending their parameter range, stimulate new application areas. An important adjunct to the proposal will be a programme to apply the sources to demonstrate their usefulness and also provide a way to involve industry and other end-users. The project builds on previous experiments and theoretical investigations of the Advanced Laser Plasma High-energy Accelerators towards X-rays (ALPHA-X) project, which has demonstrated controlled acceleration in a laser-plasma wakefield accelerator (LWFA), initial applications of beams from the LWFA and demonstrations of gamma ray production due to resonant betatron motion in the LWFA. The programme will have broad relevance, through developing an understanding of the highly nonlinear and collective physics of radiation-matter interactions, to fields ranging from astrophysics, fusion and nuclear physics, to the interaction of radiation with biological matter. It will also touch on several basic problems in physics, such as radiation reaction in plasma media and the development of coherence in nonlinear coupled systems.