Two images (Marija Vranic 4 beam QED standing wave, and Paulo Alves’ mini magnetosphere) submitted by our team have been selected as finalists for the European Science Photo Competition 2015 in the non-photographics media category. The finalists from each country are here. The winners in each category will be announced soon.

Following our tradition (see News for the “2014 Natas”), the prizes for the winners of the image and video of 2015, the “natas” of visualization, were awarded today to Nitin Shukla (left) and to Ujjwal Sinha (right), with the corresponding iPad Mini. As one of the previous winners Paulo Alves nicely described ““Nata” is a tasty Portuguese pastry that everybody likes. It’s as enjoyable as having our simulations running nicely on a big supercomputer. It can also mean being at the top, at a high level, important.” Many congratulations to the 2015 winners!

The paper version of the 2016 Calendar of the American Physical Society, sent to all the APS members, features a picture from a paper recently published by our team. The picture had been previously selected for the Phys Rev E Kaleidoscope (see News here) and illustrates the kinetic scale of the mushroom instability first described in “Transverse electron-scale instability in relativistic shear flows” by E. P. Alves, T. Grismayer, R. A. Fonseca, and L. O. Silva published in Phys. Rev. E 92, 021101(R) (2015).

Happy holidays from everyone at GoLP to all our friends! Thank you all for your hardwork and friendship in 2015, another great year for GoLP.
Let’s keep on having fun, doing great science, and developing exciting ideas and technologies for an even more successful 2016!

epp team members and alumni attended the APS DPP 2015 with several contributed talks and invited talks by Thomas Grismayer and Kevin Schoeffler.

This Friday, IST is welcoming the legends of giant wave surfing: Ramon Laureano, Joana Andrade and João Guedes. The event is a first in a series of GoLP out-of-the-box seminars and it will take place in Anfiteatro Abreu Faro, Complexo Interdisciplinar, Friday 27th at 16h30. Everyone is welcome to join us in this fantastic surfing adventure.

Students of ATHENS international exchange programme visited the L2I and got to know the research facility along with members of X-GoLP. The students were introduced to the different topics of investigation carried at the laboratory and had the chance of executing a hands on experience, in particular on measuring wavefront of laser beams.

André Boné (João Mendanha MSc student), Joana Duarte (Marta Fajardo MSc student) and João Branco (Marta Fajardo MSc student) are congratulated for successfully defending their Master theses and for achieving excellent marks.

Former X-GoLP Master student Hugo Pires successfully defended his PhD thesis on the topic “Intense ultrashort laser pulse generation”. X-GoLP hereby gives its congratulations on the achievement.

Timon Mehrling has joined our team to work with Ricardo on several projects connected with the future of Osiris. Timon joins our team with a prestigious DAAD P.R.I.M.E. Fellowship, jointly with the University of Hamburg, after obtaining his PhD degree from the University of Hamburg and DESY under the supervision of Dr. Jens Osterhoff and Prof. Brian Foster.

Many congratulations to Paulo Alves (IST PhD), now post doc at SLAC/Stanford, and Fabrizio Del Gaudio (Poli Torino MSc), André Lopes (IST MSc) and Fábio Cruz (IST MSc) (all will join the APPLAuSE PhD Program) for their recent graduation with excellent marks.

Marija V and Luis OS are in the Czech Republic for the Grand Opening of ELI Beamlines (Oct 19) and the ELI Beamlines Scientific Challenges 2015 (Oct 20 – Oct 23) where they will present some of our team’s recent work connected with ELI Beamlines.

Prof. Henrique M. Oliveira, from IST (Mathematics Department) and CAMSD, will give the next GoLP VIP Seminar on October 8, 4.30pm in Anfiteatro Abreu Faro (Complexo Interdisciplinar). The seminar will focus on the mathematical modelling of the synchronization of two pendulum clocks, a phenomenon first observed by Huygens during the XVII century. The model presented in this seminar was verified experimentally in a work featured on the last GoLP VIP Seminar.

Abstract:
The synchronization of two pendulum clocks hanging from a wall was first observed by Huygens during the XVII century. This type of synchronization is observed in other areas, and is fundamentally different from the problem of two clocks hanging from a moveable base. In this seminar we deal with the mathematical modelling of this phenomenon presenting:
1. An overview of the methods available for the study of synchronization of dynamical systems modelling actual phenomena.
2. The mathematical model used to…

The next GoLP VIP Seminar will be given by Prof. Luís Melo, from IST (Physics Department) and INESC-MN, on September 24, 4pm in Anfiteatro Abreu Faro (Complexo Interdisciplinar). The seminar will feature Luís Melo’s recent work on the Huygens synchronization of two clocks.

Abstract:
The synchronization of two pendulum clocks hanging from a wall was first observed by Huygens during the XVII century. This type of synchronization is observed in other areas, and is fundamentally different from the problem of two clocks hanging from a moveable base. We have developed a model explaining the phase opposition synchronization of two pendulum clocks in those conditions. The model is based on a small amount of energy being sent by each clock to the other at a certain point of the limit cycle. The predicted behavior was observed experimentally on clocks hanging from a good sound conductor.

After Jorge Cham‘s talk at the EAAC 2015, Diana A secured this, soon to be on our Wall of Fame, next to the covers of our papers in Nature journals. The author of PhD Comics gave an inspiring talk on “The Power of Procrastination” at grad school with a positive message.

Jorge V, Diana A, and Luis OS are attending the European Advanced Accelerator Concepts Workshop 2015 in the Island of Elba to deliver two plenary talks and one poster. This is the second workshop of this series, almost doubling the number of participants of the last edition. Great science combined with the unique setting of Biodola, excellent food, very nice beach, and great friends.

A cool picture from our recent paper “Transverse electron-scale instability in relativistic shear flows” by E. P. Alves, T. Grismayer, R. A. Fonseca, and L. O. Silva published in Phys. Rev. E 92, 021101(R) (2015) has been selected for the section Kaleidoscope of Physical Review E. According to the editors “All figures published in Physical Review E are eligible for selection by the editors for display on our web site; we choose figures on aesthetic merit.”

Marija explains on IST TV all about the recent PRACE 69 million cpu core hours award (in portuguese) and the relevance of high intensity OAM pulses for a wide range of fundamental physics processes and applications.

As part of the GoLP tradition, the GoLP summer celebration was held this year on July 30th at Viva Lisboa, followed by a stroll to the Mu ice cream shop in Campo dos Mártires da Pátria. Happy summer holidays to all GoLPers, alumni and friends!

epp team members Joana LM, Luis OS, Marija V, Pedro C, and Thomas G participated in the Conference on Extremely High Intensity Laser Physics in Heidelberg from July 21 to July 25. This conference brings together the leading experts in physics at ultra high laser intensities, covering topics such as QED, laser-plasma interactions, radiation, numerical simulations and experiments, with posters by Joana LM, Marija V, and Pedro C, and invited talk by Thomas G.