The epp team has been awarded an equivalent of 8000 years of computation on Fermi by PRACE for the project “Amplification and propagation of intense tailored laser pulses in underdense plasmas” (co-PIs: M. Vranic, J. Vieira, L. O. Silva). The project will explore how specially tailored pulses (with orbital angular momentum, pre-designed spectral features, or tailored intensity profiles e.g. sequences of trailing pulses) interact with plasmas and their potential impact on a wide range of scientific and technological applications. The project of the epp eam was selected together with 17 others among the total of 107 proposals submitted to the 11th PRACE call.

epp MSc student Fábio Cruz was awarded the 2nd prize for Best Poster in the 12th International School/Symposium for Space Simulations (ISSS-12), out of approximately 50 posters, with his work “PIC Simulations of Collisionless Shocks in Mini Magnetospheres”. ISSS-12 was held in Prague, Czech Republic, on July 03-10 2015 and gathered some of the world experts in computational solar and space plasma physics.

Jorge V will present an invited talk at the upcoming ICHED 2015 in San Diego. His talk will address “Large Scale Magnetic Field Generation In Laser Under-Dense Plasma Interactions” focusing on the results recently published in Nature Physics.

epp team members Thomas Grismayer and Kevin Schoeffler will deliver two invited talks at the upcoming 57th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics, November 16-20, 2015 in Savannah, Georgia. Thomas G talk will address QED cascades in ultra intense laser pulses, while Kevin S will speak about the generation of Biermann battery fields in laser-plasma interactions and the interplay with the Weibel instability.

Over the past week, all the members of the epp team, along with other GoLP members, showcased their recent work in invited talks, oral contributions and posters, covering several areas of plasma physics, along with other fruitful and informal interactions with the leaders of the field that visited Lisbon for the EPS 2015.

Bandhu Pathak, from CoReLS, IBS in Korea will give the GoLP VIP Seminar on June 18, 11am in Anfiteatro Abreu Faro (Complexo Interdisciplinar) on Coherent control over laser wakefield acceleration.

The abstract for the talk is:
One of the most promising applications of ultra high intensity laser systems is laser wakefield acceleration, with very exciting prospects to achieve the new energy frontier. In this talk we mainly discuss how modifying the spectral profile of the driving pulse can control the acceleration process. One of the ways of coherent control is by introducing frequency chirp in the laser which can affect the laser propagation, and as a consequence, on the wakefield acceleration. Laser chirp can affect the phase velocity of the wake, and the self-guiding conditions at the front of the laser. As a result the characteristics of the trapped electrons can be controlled using frequency chirp. We have then…

GoLP has signed an MoU with the Center for Relativistic Laser Science of the Institute for Basic Sciences of South Korea, during the visit of Prof. Chang Hee Nam, the director of CoReLS, to Lisbon. The MoU aims to strength the collaboration between the groups on high intensity laser matter interactions.

Our recent paper on the spatio-temporal theory of the current filamentation instability by V.B. Pathak et al published in the New Journal of Physics has been selected by the editors as IOP Select. These are the articles from the last 12 months that have been chosen by the editors for their novelty, significance and potential impact on future research.

Luis OS will present the talk “In Silico Plasmas Under Extreme Intensities” at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory Colloquium on May 12, 2015. More information is available here.

In collaboration with physicists from Laboratoire d’Optique Apliquée (LOA), EPP researchers have tested a model for the origin of large-scale magnetic fields in the universe. The origin of magnetic fields in astrophysics is an outstanding scientific mystery, which has been investigated using powerful telescopes that probe our universe. Observations from telescopes can be viewed as data from experiments whose initial conditions cannot be controlled and tuned by human beings. In order to face this limitation, researchers have recently begun to reproduce astrophysical conditions under controlled environments in the laboratory. EPP team members Jorge Vieira and Luís Silva and LOA researchers have now used intense lasers in plasmas to test a model for the origin of cosmic magnetic fields in the laboratory. The work involving experiments, theory and simulations was published in Nature Physics and can be found here.

An international team of scientists involving epp team researchers Nitin Shukla, Jorge Vieira and Luís Silva recently announced the discovery of a new state of matter, which is electrically neutral and containing equal parts of matter and anti-matter. This new substance had never been observed before, and has been subject of many theories that predict that it could be observed near the boundary of black holes and produced through violent astrophysical explosions. Experiments combined with massive particle-in-cell simulations have now shown that this exotic substance could be produced when an intense laser propagates in a plasma producing ultra-relativistic electrons that can then be transformed in a fireball electron-positron beam with equal parts of matter and anti-matter. These results were published in Nature Communications. The paper can be found here.

 Elisabetta B, Joana M, Jorge V, Marija V, Thomas G, and Luis OS attended the SPIE Conference 2015 in Prague from April 13 to April 16, delivering several invited talks and oral and poster contributions. This year, SPIE covered many of the hot topics in ultra intense laser matter interactions, laser-plasma acceleration, radiation generation and QED effects, with many interesting results being presented.

Luis OS, Elisabetta, Joana, and Marija attended the École de Physique des Houches on Turbulence, Magnetic Fields and Self-Organisation in Laboratory and Astrophysical Plasmas. The school is running from March 23, 2015 to April 3, 2015 in the beautiful Chamonix Valley, an ideal setting for introspection, lively discussions with the 100+ participants, and winter sports! The École de Physique des Houches has a long tradition of hosting schools on some of the most exciting physics topics. More information on the School here.

On March 20, Marija successfully defended her PhD thesis in Physics at IST entitled “Extreme laser-matter interactions: multi-scale PIC modelling from the classical to the QED perspective” with the highest mark. The thesis committee was composed of Victor Malka, Peter Norreys, Jorge Romão, Ricardo Fonseca, Marta Fajardo and Luis OS. Many congratulations to Marija!

In the February 16 2015 edition of the i newspaper, Luis OS explains the fourth state of matter in less than 650 characters and in Portuguese (with the standard metaphors). The “full” text is also here with many other science questions raised by the readers of i.

The PRACE project “Shock Acceleration in the Laboratory with Ultraintense Lasers: from astrophysics to ion acceleration for medical applications” has been featured in the website of the Gauss Centre for Supercomputing, with a description of the key results of the project. This PRACE project has contributed to the goals of the ERC Advanced Grant Accelerates. The article is available here.

Starting January 1st, Luis OS has joined the editorial board of the Journal of Plasma Physics (Cambridge University Press) as Associate Editor. The Journal of Plasma Physics has published some of the fundamental developments of plasma physics. JPP aspires to be the intellectual home of those who think of plasma physics as a fundamental discipline. The journal will particularly focus on publishing research on laboratory plasmas, space physics and plasma astrophysics that takes advantage of the rapid ongoing progress in instrumentation and computing to advance fundamental understanding of multiscale plasma physics. Read the Editorial: The Way Forward for JPP by Bill Dorland and Alex Schekochihin.

Happy Holidays to all our team members and friends! We look forward to another year of great science, friendship, and fun!

This years’ GoLP Day (December 15) was held near the Castelo de São Jorge, in Museu de Artes Decorativas. The programme included the Marshmallow Challenge, case studies on improving several aspects of GoLP’s life, visits to the Museum and the Workshops, and to the Castelo São Jorge, prizes (including official GoLP merchandise!), and lots of interactions and fun. 

On December 5, Joana successfully defended her PhD thesis in Physics entitled “Radiation processes in laser driven laboratory scenarios” at IST with the highest mark. The thesis committee was composed of Bob Bingham, Patric Muggli, Ricardo Fonseca, João M. Dias, Jorge Vieira and Luis OS. Many congratulations to Joana!