GoLP members joined on sunny December 20 for another GoLP Xmas and New Year celebration. Besides having the tasty “bacalhau” and other season delicatessens there was still time for the canonical picture of (almost) all the team members in the front of IST’s Main building.

Many congratulations to Mariana M for being awarded the best MEFT MSc thesis in plasma physics, lasers and nuclear fusion in the academic year 2016/2017. Mariana’s thesis was on ““Influence of proton bunch and plasma parameters on the AWAKE experiment” supervised by Jorge V.

The 2nd EuPRAXIA Yearly meeting, held from November 20 to November 24 2017, was hosted at IST and organised by GoLP. This meeting gathered more than 80 participants coming from several European Countries. The goal of this project is to produce a conceptual design report for the worldwide first high energy plasma-based accelerator that can provide industrial beam quality and user areas (more information here). ​The Portuguese participation in the EuPRAXIA project is provided by GoLP. The EuPRAXIA is a project funded by the EU. The EuPRAXIA yearly meeting at IST was sponsored by IST and CGD.

Congratulations to Rui Oliveira e Silva for successfully defend his MSc thesis in Physics Engineering!

In his thesis entitled “Design of optical spectrometers with RamSERS project”, Rui evaluates the parameters for the design of two Raman spectrometers , with the goal of achieving very competitive specifications using off-the-shelf optical elements. The design is verified by paraxial analysis and Zemax.

The ultimate goal of the project is to develop a portable device for the identification of cancer biomarkers through Raman spectroscopy.

Well done, Rui!

Celso João, who successfully defended his PhD thesis in 2016, has now been awarded the Prize for the Best PhD Thesis in Optics by the Portuguese Society for Optics and Photonics (SPOF).

Celso, a postdoc researcher and member of the Group for Lasers and Plasmas, has specialised in high power laser design and development. In his thesis entitled “Diode-pumped solid-state lasers for optical parametric amplification pumping”, he describes the implementation of new two diode-pumped ytterbium lasers for pumping OPCPA amplifiers.

The first laser amplifier is installed at IST, while the second was added to the front end of the PHELIX laser at GSI Darmstadt, through a collaboration with IOQ/IAP-FSU Jena. The work was supervised by Prof. Gonçalo Figueira (IST), head of the Laboratory for Intense Lasers in Lisbon.

SPOF was created in 2009 with the goals of promoting optics from the viewpoints of research, training and education. The national prize for the…

Many congratulations to Rui T for his recent MSc graduation with a thesis on “Realistic modelling of vacuum polarization induced light scattering scenarios in extreme intense fields”, under the supervision of Thomas G.

Many congratulations to Mariana M for her recent MSc graduation with excellent marks. Mariana will now become a CERN fellow while pursuing her PhD degree with our team working on the AWAKE experiment under the supervision of Jorge V.

A recent paper in Physics of Plasmas by Hossein S, Jorge V, and Luis OS “Ponderomotive beatwave ion acceleration using twisted light” has been highlighted in AIP Scilight with the article “Hollow counter-propagating lasers extend the energy of optically accelerated ions” by J. H. Majors. The highlight is available here.

Our team attended the 59th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics, October 23 – 27, 2017 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin presenting several posters, delivering one invited talk in the general session, two invited talks in a mini-conference, and several contributed talks. The IOP reception was another great opportunity to have a good time with many of our friends. From left to right, Ricardo F (IST/ISCTE-IUL), Warren M (UCLA), Jorge V (IST), Thomas G (IST), Nitin S (IST), Anton H (IST/UCLA), Sam T (SLAC/Stanford), Bob B (RAL/Strathclyde), Kevin S (IST), Luis OS (IST), Frederico F (SLAC/Stanford), Xavier D (CEA), Paulo A (SLAC/Stanford), and Nuno L (LLNL).

Luis OS delivered a talk at the Swiss Plasma Centre and another talk in the 1st EPFL Physics Day on October 16 in the incredible Rolex Learning Centre at EPFL. The talks presented some the recent developments of our team in plasmas under extreme intensities.

Our team had a strong participation at the 1st Osiris Users and Developers Workshop organized at UCLA from Sep 18 and Sep 20 (a joint organisation between UCLA and IST). With over 50 participants it also an excellent opportunity to learn about all the exciting developments in Osiris, also some of the cool physics being explored, and, of course, meet again our alumni and friends (in the photo, from left to right, Fabrizio DG, Anton H, Kevin S, Fabio C, Diana A, Ricardo F, Paulo A, Thomas G, Giannandrea I). The website of the workshop, including presentations, is here. The next workshop will be held at IST in 2018.

Our team members Jorge V and Thales S attended the 3rd European Advanced Accelerator Concepts Workshop 2017 in Elba, Italy, La Biodola, Isola d’Elba, Italy, delivering talks and presenting posters. This was also an opportunity to follow up on collaborations, committee meetings, and meet old friends and GoLP alumni. In the picture, Timon M (now at DESY), Joana LM (now at Chalmers), Thales S and Jorge V. 

From September 5 to September 8, some of the top experts on Extremely High-Intensity Laser Physics convened at IST for the ExHILP 2017 with more than 110 participants, 58 talks and 42 posters in a conference with lots of exciting progresses, engaging speakers, including a flash presentation of the posters and a lively poster session. The next ExHILP is already scheduled for 2019 in South Korea, and there is already a proposal to host ExHILP 2021, thus guaranteeing an exciting venue for all the developments in these topics. Thank you very much to all the participants: we look forward to welcome you in Lisbon soon!

Marija V has been awarded the 2017 John Dawson PhD Thesis Prize for her thesis “Extreme laser-matter interactions: multi-scale PIC modelling from the classical to the QED perspective” at IST. The “John Dawson Thesis prize” is awarded on a biannual basis for the best PhD thesis in the area of compact plasma based accelerators driven by ultra-intense laser pulses. The prize was awarded at the Laser and Plasma Accelerators Workshop held at Jeju Island in South Korea, from the 27th of August to the 1st of September 2017. The prize is named after John Dawson, the founder of the field of plasma based particle acceleration. He worked and lived in Los Angeles.

Marija Vranic is a Serbian researcher from Belgrade now working at IST. She obtained her undergraduate physics degree in Belgrade and moved to Portugal to do her PhD at GoLP with Luis OS on the topic of ‘’Extreme laser-matter interactions: multi-scale PIC modelling…

Frederico Fiuza, GoLP and epp team alumnus, and now staff scientist and leader of the theory group at the SLAC’s High Energy Density Science division has been awarded a prestigious DOE Early Career Research Grant to develop work at SLAC. The work will focus on particle acceleration in plasmas. More information here.

Another GoLP summer lunch meeting was held July 26, 2017 were all GoLP members had the chance to interact in the informal atmosphere of Mesa do Bairro over a selection of typical portuguese petiscos and great science discussions.

Giannandrea has been awarded the PPCF/EPS/IUPAP Poster Prize at the 44th EPS conference on Plasma Physics held in Belfast 26-30 June 2017 for his poster on “Large-scale PIC simulations of high β magnetorotational instability”. Many congratulations to Giannandrea!

In a recent paper in Nature Communications on “Magnetic turbulence in a table-top laser-plasma relevant to astrophysical scenarios” Kevin S has contributed with numerical simulations and physics interpretation to understand experimental results aimed at probing the magnetic turbulence driven by intense lasers, as part of a collaboration between the epp team and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. The work has been featured worldwide in many outlets, including Phys.org, Nature India, and Science Daily.

The UCLA Particle-in-Cell and Kinetic Simulation Center and the IST Extreme Plasma Physics Team in Portugal are pleased to announce the first annual OSIRIS Users and Developers Workshop. The location will alternate between UCLA and IST with the first workshop to be held at UCLA September 18-20 2017.This meeting is open to all who have gained access to or are interested in gaining access to the OSIRIS source code and data analysis tools through an MoU between either UCLA or IST.

The goals of the workshop are:

To introduce users to the new features and design of OSIRIS 4.0.
To allow users of OSIRIS to share experiences and discuss best practices.
To identify useful test and demonstration problems.
To discuss how to transition from being a user to an active developer.
Identify areas for near term software improvements and a community strategy for carrying out the necessary development.

If you are interested in attending…