epp team members Thomas G, Ricardo F, Óscar A, Thales S, alumni Kevin S, Pablo B, Bernardo B, Bertrand M, Robert B and Frederico F (all in the picture below) attended the 49th European Physical Society Conference on Plasma Physics (EPS 2023), held on July 3-7 2023 in Bordeaux, France.

Frederico F (invited), Thomas G (contributed), Thales S (contributed), Kevin S (contributed), and Pablo B (contributed) delivered talks, whereas Ricardo F, Óscar A, Bernardo B, Bertrand M, and Robert B presented posters.

epp team members Jorge Vieira and Róbert Babjak went to Zhuhai, China to attend the 6th International Conference on Matter and Radiation at Extremes, held on 5-9 June 2023. Jorge V delivered the plenary talk named Superradiance and temporal coherence in plasma accelerators: New pathways towards FEL brightnesses in plasma. Róbert B presented an invited talk about the connections between laser focusing and efficiency of the direct laser acceleration. Topics covered at the conference were fundamental physics at extreme light, inertial confinement fusion, radiation and hydrodynamics, and others. 

On Monday, 12th of May at 11:00 am, there will be a GoLP VIP Seminar by Jerome V Moloney (Univeristy of Arizona). The event will take place at Anfiteatro Abreu Faro – Complexo I at IST.

Title: Extreme Nonlinear Optics and Nonequilibrium Dynamics in 2D and 3D Solids

Abstract: Semiconductor crystal structures, when exposed to intense ultrashort optical or THz pulses, are driven into highly nonequilibrium states that are dominated by higher order many-body carrier correlations. In this talk, I will combine a description of the theoretical foundation of these interactions with experimental realizations of continuous wave and pulsed optically pumped semiconductor disk lasers (SDLs) as illustrations. Historically, we used the theory to design SDLs and experimentally observed a record > 100 W high brightness continuous wave emission from a single chip, a record > 16 W single frequency operation and a room temperature tunable THz source. Under mode-locked pulsed operation we observed a…

Members of our team, including Filipe DC, Pablo  JB, and Luis OS, recently had the opportunity to participate in a groundbreaking experiment held at CERN’s SPS HiRadMat facility. The team led by Charles Arrowsmith and Gianluca Gregori from Oxford University, our researchers joined forces with experts from Oxford University, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Rochester University, University of Iceland, Max Planck Institute, and IST to contribute to the project. Leveraging our expertise in theory and simulations, our team played a significant role in ensuring the success of the experiment. It is worth mentioning that Filipe and Pablo actively assisted in data collection and provided valuable theoretical support during the experimental run at the renowned facility located in Geneva.

The experiment, aptly named Fireball (HRMT-62), has a primary focus on studying micro-instabilities in high-intensity electron-positron beams interacting with low-density plasma. By examining the interactions between a 440 GeV/c proton beam and a…

During the ceremony of the Instituto Superior Técnico day, celebrated on the 23rd of May, 27 professors of the physics department were rewarded with the IST prize of Academic Excellence in Teaching relative to the academic year 2021-2022.

Among the professors awarded this prize, we have the GoLP members Gonçalo Nuno Marmelo Foito Figueira, Hugo Fernando Santos Terças, Hugo Filipe de Almeida Pires, Marta Leitão Mota Fajardo, Miguel José Ferreira Pardal, Pedro Afonso Cosme e Silva and Victor Hariton. The GoLP members represent 25% of the professors awarded this award this year in the whole physics department.

Many congratulations!

epp PhD student Diogo C was awarded one of the Fulbright Portugal 2023 PhD scholarships for research activities in U.S. institutions. This support will allow him to spend 9 months at the plasma physics group of the University of California, Los Angeles where he will be collaborating with Prof. Paulo Alves on the development of machine learning-accelerated plasma physics simulators.

Last week, the epp PhD students Robert B, Pablo B, and Rui T participated in the doctoral training School Plasmas in extreme environments: from Astrophysics to the Laboratory from the 1st to the 12th of May (2023) at Les Houches School of Physics, France. The school was organized with the help of the epp member Thomas G.
During the school, Robert B and Thomas G gave a talk during the school, and Pablo B and Rui T presented a poster.

As part of the celebrations of the 30th anniversary of GoLP our members showcased some of the work developed over the years in a dedicated booth at the XXVI Semana da Física organized by NFIST. Hopefully, this motivated some of the high school students who visited us during the week to learn more about lasers-plasma physics, and who knows, one day present their work from the other side of the stand.

Last week, Filipe Cruz went to Oxford to attend the “Direct Drive and Fast Ignition Workshop 2023” and present a poster about his recent work.

Victor Hariton successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled “Nonlinear spectral broadening and pulse compression in multipass cells” on April 27, 2023, being awarded the top final grade of Approved with Distinction Cum Laude.

During his PhD, Victor specialised in solid-state laser science and technology and nonlinear optics, investigating topics ranging from high repetition rate diode-pumped amplifiers to nonlinear pulse compression mechanisms. He performed research at the Laboratory for Intense Lasers, IST, and at the Helmut Schmidt University in Hamburg, Germany, with Oleg Pronin’s team. He integrated the APPLAuSE 2017 class and joined GoLP for his thesis, under the supervision of Gonçalo Figueira and Celso P. João.

In particular, Victor worked on the design and experimental development of a novel concave-convex setup for pulse compression in multipass cells, as well as the application of Heriott cells for compression in the green spectral region. He had a key role in the development of…

Epp members (in the first picture) Rui T, Pablo JB, and Diogo C went to Princeton Center For Theoretical Science (Princeton) to attend the Joint PGI/PCTS Workshop, held on 24th-26th of April 2023. Diogo C and Pablo JB presented a talk about their recent work, and Rui T presented a poster.

A team of researchers from IST has recently published a paper entitled “Radiation reaction cooling as a source of anisotropic momentum distributions with inverted populations” in the prestigious journal Physical Review Letters. This paper has been selected as Editor’s Suggestion, assigned to papers considered of be particularly important, interesting, and well written.

The study reveals a previously undocumented effect in plasma physics that alters the behavior of plasmas subjected to strong electromagnetic fields, potentially rendering them unstable and causing the emission of intense coherent radiation. This effect is thought to occur naturally in plasmas surrounding neutron stars. The paper’s lead author, PhD student Pablo J. Bilbao, conducted the research under the supervision of Professor Luís O. Silva of the Physics Department and GoLP/IPFN.

In classical electrodynamics textbooks, we all learn that charged particles accelerated in powerful electromagnetic fields radiate. When the particles are relativistic and the fields are strong, the…

On Friday, 19th of May at 11:00 am, there will be a GoLP VIP Seminar by Marco Picardo (Instituto Superior Técnico). The event will take place at Anfiteatro Abreu Faro – Complexo I at IST.

Title: Structured light solutions in search of a (plasma) problem

Abstract: Our ability to generate new light distributions has improved remarkably in recent years. At the most fundamental level, these light patterns are obtained by cleverly combining different electromagnetic modes. Optical modes define the spatial, temporal, frequency and polarization structure of an electromagnetic wave. All these modes correspond to distinct degrees of freedom of a photon allowing to structure light in many dimensions. The field of highly multimode photonics still in search of a problem. In this seminar I will present…

On Thursday, 30th of March at 11:00 am, there will be a GoLP VIP Seminar by Peter A Norreys (University of Oxford). The event will take place at Anfiteatro Abreu Faro – Complexo I at IST.

Title: Towards More Robust Ignition of Inertial Fusion Targets

Abstract: Following the hugely significant 1.3 MJ fusion milestone at the National Ignition Facility . In this seminar, I will talk about the first multi-dimensional…

Luis OS recently emphasized the importance of integrating ethical considerations into scientific research in an interview with Diário de Notícias here. With technological advancements in fields like AI and biotechnology, the impact of scientific research on society has never been greater.

According to Luis OS, it’s the responsibility of scientists to address the ethical dilemmas posed by new technology. Scientific education and training should prioritize ethics, including research design, ethics committees, and codes of conduct. By taking a proactive approach to ethical principles, scientific research can become more responsible for the benefit of society.

In a paper recently published in the prestigious journal Physical Review Letters, entitled “Mitigation of the Onset of Hosing in the Linear Regime through Plasma Frequency Detuning”, a research team from IST, in collaboration with the Max Planck Institute for Physics in Germany, proposes a solution to a problem that threatens one of the existing concepts for a plasma-based particle accelerator. The problem consists of an instability that can develop when a particle beam propagates in plasma and is subject to the associated electric fields, which can be extremely strong, resulting in its potential disruption. This work is led by the Physics Department (DF) PhD student Mariana Moreira, under the supervision of Prof. Jorge Vieira from DF and GoLP/IPFN.

Plasma-based particle acceleration promises the emergence of much more compact and potentially cheaper accelerators. This idea was first put forward in 1979, and since then different possibilities of realizing the…

Following our tradition (see the “2014 Natas”, “2015 Natas”, “2016 Natas”, “2017 Natas”, “2018 Natas“ and “2019 Natas“), the prizes for the winners of the image, video, and VR of 2023, the “natas” of visualization, are finally announced.

The prizes awarded were:

Best image: Róbert Babjak and Rui Torres (tie)
Best video: Camilla Willim
Best VR visualization: Camilla Willim and Bertrand Martinez (tie)

The term “Nata” was coined by one of the previous winners Paulo Alves: “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.” Nata is also a new open-source visualization framework recently launched by epp team members. Many congratulations to the 2023 winners! The images and videos have been posted on the team website here and will be posted over…

Last Friday, the LPAW’23 organized by GoLP ended. Our GoLP members Miguel P, Marija V and Bernardo B gave a talk during the workshop. Bertrand M, Camilla W, Chiara B, Mariana M, Rafael A and Óscar A presented a poster about their recent work. The conference overall was a great success, leading to many fruitful discussions.

Following are some pictures from the conference.

On Monday, 13th of March at 11:00 am, there will be an IST Distinguished Lecture by Chandrashekhar Joshi (University of California Los Angeles, U.S.A.). The event will take place at Room 4.41 (2nd floor, Civil Eng. Building).

Title: Perspectives on Beam-Driven Plasma-Based Acceleration.

Abstract: Particle accelerators have been engines of discovery in our understanding of the Universe and have applications in many areas of modern life from medicine to security. The most powerful ones are 10’s of kilometers in length, determined by the strength of the accelerating electric field.

It has been four decades since the concept of using a relativistic plasma wake for charged particle acceleration was first proposed. In relativistic plasma wakes the accelerating electric field can be orders of magnitude greater than in a conventional accelerator with the potential to reduce the size of the accelerating structure. The driver for producing such wakes can be in intense laser pulse or a high current charged-particle…

On Friday, 3rd of March at 11:00 am, there will be a GoLP VIP Seminar by Alec Thomas (University of Michigan). The event will take place at Anfiteatro Abreu Faro – Complexo I at IST.

Title: Phase matched photon acceleration from Optical to XUV in a beam driven wakefield

Abstract: The propagating density gradients of a plasma wakefield may frequency upshift a trailing witness laser pulse, a process known as `photon acceleration’. In uniform plasma, the witness laser will eventually dephase because of group delay. We find phase matching conditions for the pulse using a tailored density profile. An analytic solution for a 1d nonlinear plasma wake with an electron beam driver indicates that, even though the plasma density decreases, the frequency shift reaches no asymptotic limit, i.e. is unlimited provided the wake can be sustained. In fully self-consistent 1d particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations, more than 40 times frequency shifts were demonstrated. In quasi-3d PIC simulations frequency shifts up…