The image depicts the interpenetration of two dark e- e+ plasma clouds. The interaction of dark-plasma clouds leads to the generation of dark-Weibel magnetic fields, which deflect the particle trajectories. This process causes the flow velocity of dark matter to slow down.
Magnetic reconnection of QED strength fields with hard photon radiation emission
Compression of the fields of a magnetic island leads to enhanced radiative cooling, in turn, further compression, and thus a runaway process leading to QED effects such as pair production. This image shows field lines around a magnetic island colored by strength. Regions where the field is compressed to more than 125% of the initial strength are highlighted in green. The emitted hard photons responsible for radiative cooling and pair production are shown clustered around the compressed field.
Speiser and Dahu orbits: the trappings that heat you up!
Time evolution of two current sheets profiles (colored surfaces) that move close to each other, increasing their intensities (from violet to yellow) and merges at the late stage. The lines represent the trajectories of sample ions. The white ones (not trapped) do not increase their energy. The colored trajectory, instead, is trapped bouncing between the confining approaching current profiles, increasing its kinetic energy from yellow to green, evolving alternatively from Speiser and Dahu orbits.
Flying cavity: micro-bunching of protons for electron acceleration
Particle accelerators have been crucial in providing novel insights in different branches of physics. It is foreseen that the next generation of particle accelerators will be plasma-driven. Using a laser pulse in a neutral gas, an electron plasma can be generated which cuts a long proton bunch in micro-bunches. This allows to generate wakes for accelerating electrons to higher energies over shorter distances.
QED strength magnetic reconnection triggered by radiative compression
When magnetic fields approach the Schwinger magnetic field, radiative cooling triggers compression of the field to even stronger levels, allowing for QED effects such as pair production to play an important role. In this video, magnetic field lines, colored by field strength, are shown to reconnect. Regions where the field is compressed to more than 125% of the initial strength are highlighted in green, with the projected field strength displayed behind in blue.
Fountain currents and Biermann fields
The movie illustrates the interaction between an intense laser pulse (light orange) and an overdense target (blue surface), generating a strong toroidal magnetic field (dark orange), via the Biermann battery mechanism. Indeed, as a consequence of the interaction, the expansion of the plasma (density gradient) occurs in a direction perpendicular to the electron heating (temperature gradient), thus giving rise to a non-zero ∇ n x ∇ T and, hence, a magnetic field. The blue arrows represent the electron current, showing the so-called fountain effect.
Radiation from charged particles in a helical trajectory
Charged particles undergoing a helical trajectory have been shown to emit radiation with very interesting spectral properties. The Radiation Diagnostic for OSIRIS (RaDiO) captures the radiated fields in a grid separate from the simulation grid. This animation follows a relativistic particle (in blue) undergoing a helical trajectory, the radiation is represented by pink rings that spread out as they propagate. We then accelerate towards the detector to see the same radiation as captured by RaDiO.
Welcome to the website of the extreme plasma physics team, the theory and simulation team of the Group for Lasers and Plasmas of the Instituto de Plasmas e Fusão Nuclear at Instituto Superior Técnico.
Our team is funded by the European Research Council through the Advanced Grant "Accelerates" (ERC-AdG2010 no. 267841) and the Advanced Grant “InPairs” (ERC-AdG2015).
Óscar Amaro was awarded a scholarship “Novos Talentos em Tecnologias Quânticas” by Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. In the next 10 months, Óscar will work on a research project that aims to apply quantum algorithms to a plasma physics problem, under supervision of Marija Vranic. This program has an objective…
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