GoLP supports several full time research fellowships (at MSc, PhD, or post-doc level) for students/researchers from Ukraine (with backgrounds in physics, electrical engineering, applied mathematics, or computer science) in topics of our research portfolio (exp-theory-simulations) that covers laser-plasma physics, lasers, optics, plasma astrophysics, warm dense matter, light sources, high-performance computing, numerical simulations, laser technology (for details check our website http://golp.tecnico.ulisboa.pt and the websites of our two main teams: http://xgolp.tecnico.ulisboa.pt and http://epp.tecnico.ulisboa.pt). We also cover tuition and fees for students transferring to a degree at Instituto Superior Tecnico.
For more information email luis.silva@tecnico.ulisboa.pt.
 

Speaker: George Vahala
Title: Qubit Lattice Algorithm for the Electromagnetic Pulse Propagation in Scalar Dielectric Media
Abstract: There is much interest in examining plasma problems that will be amenable to error-correcting quantum computers. For some years, we have been developing Qubit Lattice Algorithms (QLA) for the solution of nonlinear physics – in particular the Nonlinear Schrodinger Equation (NLS)/Gross Pitaevskii equation in 1D-2D-3D. The 1D soliton physics benchmarked our algorithms, while in 3D we examined scalar quantum turbulence, finding 3 energy cascades on a 5760³ grid using 11k processors (2009). For spinor BEC simulations the QLA were ideally parallelized on classical supercomputers (tested to over 760k cores on IBM Mira). QLA is a mesoscopic representation of interleaved non-commuting sequence of collision/streaming operators which in the continuum limit perturbatively reproduce the physics equations of interest. The collision operators entangle the local on-site qubits, while the streaming operators spread this entanglement throughout the lattice….

The EPP member and invited Professor at the Instituto Superior Técnico of the University of Lisbon, Marija Vranic, is the winner of the 2022 PRACE Ada Lovelace Award for HPC for her outstanding impact on HPC in Europe. Dr. Vranic has not only pioneered techniques for simulating extreme plasmas, but she is also actively involved in improving the visibility of women in physics and HPC — for instance, by reducing the gender imbalance of invited speakers at scientific conferences and mentoring the Women in Physics student group at IST.
Many congratulations to Marija!

Ricardo Fonsenca, research member of GoLP, talked about his work on ’90 segundos de ciência’. In this brief interview, Ricardo presented the many applications of computational plasma physics, the recent collaboration with CERN’s AWAKE experiment, and how plasma particle accelerators will revolutionize techniques in medicine and industry.
 

Speaker: Andrew Baczewsk
Title: Prospects for simulating warm dense matter on quantum computers
Abstract:Warm dense matter is typified by the coexistence of electron degeneracy and thermal effects. The quantum nature of the constituent electrons requires that their dynamics obey the Schroedinger equation, the solution of which suffers from a notorious curse of dimensionality. The cost of curing this curse on classical computers is a dilemma – the choice between accuracy and efficiency. But quantum computers promise to enable us to have both accuracy and efficiency. In this talk, I will describe the prospects for realizing this in the context of simulating warm dense matter. First, I will motivate the need for quantum simulation with a discussion of the state of the art in simulation on classical computers. Then, I will describe work that our group has done to improve the efficiency of simulation algorithms in the NISQ era. Finally, I will provide estimates for what it will take to realize significant…

“Solid, liquid, or gas? What is the state of matter of the stars?”
Introducing the concept of plasma, and finally guiding us toward the enigma of the pulsars, check out the news piece at SIC, with Luís O. Silva.

The AWAKE Collaboration, of which GoLP members Ricardo Fonseca, Nelson Lopes, Mariana Moreira, Jorge Vieira, Luis O. Silva, and Nuno Torrado are part, has published today an “Analysis of proton bunch parameters in the AWAKE experiment“, in the Journal of Instrumentation. This work offers a precise characterization of the incoming proton bunch parameters, crucial to accurately simulate one of the most important parts of the AWAKE experiment: the self-modulation process.

EPP GoLP member awarded second place in the APS DPP 2021 Visual Science Communication contest during the 63rd Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics, held in a hybrid format on November 8-12 2021.
Pablo J. Bilbao was awarded the 2nd place video award in the APS DPP 2021 Visual Science Communication. The video featured the research presented in his poster during the conference, with the title a self-consistent study of the electron cyclotron maser instability as a source of coherent radiation.
 

 
EPP team members Marija Vranic and Oscar Amaro have recently published their work “Optimal laser focusing for positron production in laser–electron scattering”  on New Journal of Physics.
Marija and Óscar extend the analytical scaling laws previously developed for electron interaction with a plane wave to more realistic geometries, resulting in a fast parameter optimization process that can save computing resources. Their study has important applications in real-time optimization and data analysis in experiments.

On the 21st of October, the EPP member Fábio Cruz has successfully defended his PhD thesis with the title “Multiscale modeling of pulsar magnetospheres”.
Fábio’s work was approved with the top mark of Distinction and Honors.
The defense has taken place in a hybrid mode. His thesis committee was composed by Ilidio Lopes (IST), Anatoly Spitkovsky (Princeton), Benoit Cerruti (Grenoble), and Thomas Grismayer (IST), and was presided by Luis Lemos Alves (IST).
Many Congratulations to Fábio and all the best wishes for his career and future!