Author archive for Luis O. Silva

The Executive Committee of HEDLA has awarded IST the organisation of the next HEDLA meeting to be held in 2020, in the week of May 25 (#HEDLA2020). This will be the 22th anniversary (13th edition) of the HEDLA conference, first organized in Pleasanton, CA in 1996. Previous editions were hosted by Osaka U, SLAC/Stanford, and U. Bordeaux. This conference  will be a great opportunity to discuss exciting recent work and future prospects in laboratory astrophysics. During the past decade, research teams around the world have developed astrophysics-relevant research utilizing high energy-density facilities such as intense lasers and z-pinches. Research is underway in many areas, such as compressible hydrodynamic mixing, shock phenomena, magnetic reconnection, turbulence, jets, dynamos, heat conduction, radiative transport, complex opacities, equations of state, warm dense matter, relativistic plasmas, pair plasmas, and QED. HEDLA will showcase these results and will establish further bridges with the astrophysics community.

In a paper published today, August 29, in the journal Nature, the AWAKE collaboration at CERN, which includes Luis OS, Jorge V, Nelson L, Ricardo F, Mariana M, and Anton H, from GoLP/IST, reports the first ever successful acceleration of electrons using a wave generated by protons zipping through a plasma. The acceleration obtained over a given distance is already several times higher than that of conventional technologies currently available for particle accelerators. First proposed in the 1970s, the use of plasma waves (or so called wakefields) has the potential to drastically reduce the size of accelerators in the next several decades.
The image, by Jorge V, illustrates the concept: the proton beam breaks up in small beamlets (yellow), that drive a plasma wave and the corresponding electric field (blue isosurfaces), that accelerate the co-propagating electrons (small spheres, where color is proportional to the energy of the electrons).
AWAKE,…

The new collection of Plasma Physics in Nature Communications features three publications where our team is involved, three of the four sections of the collection (Fundamental Properties of Plasma, Particle Accelerators, and Laboratory and Astrophysical Plasma).

The recent issue of the Horizons Magazine, the EU Research & Innovation Magazine features an article about the research of our team in the ERC Advanced Grant InPairs. In the section “Frontier Research”, the article titled “Antimatter plasma reveals secrets of deep space signals“ explores some of the results of two ongoing ERC Advanced Grants, covering both the work at GoLP and the work at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Garching, Munich, and how these works bridge the gap between one of the most exotic states of matter (electron-positron plasma) and astrophysical and laboratory conditions.

 

Our team hosted a mini-workshop on strong field physics: from lasers to QCD in collaboration with CeFEMA, including presentations from Sebastien Meuren (Princeton), Thomas G, and Emilio Ribeiro (DF & CeFEMA). The possible connections between QCD and strong field QED were explored with a lively discussion and exploration of possible future directions for research.

Marija V has delivered the IST Physics Department Colloquium on April 11 with the seminar “Extreme Laser-matter Interactions”. The Physics Department Colloquium is held every week and aims to show case national and international speakers of relevance to the research and educational activities of the IST Physics Department.

Diana A has been awarded her PhD on “Controlled Plasma Wakefield Acceleration for Particle Acceleration Towards the Energy Frontier” under the supervision of Jorge V and co-supervision of Luis OS. The thesis defense took place April 6 2018 in the presence of the thesis committee Profs. L. Alves, R. Bingham, P. Muggli, J.P.Bizarro, and J. Vieira. Many congratulations to the new Doctor Diana Amorim!

The mystery of X-ray emissions from comets has been solved by an international team integrating epp team researchers, Fabio C and Luis OS. This work was published today in Nature Physics.
Scientists have long wondered why comets can radiate X-rays, given that X-rays are normally associated with hot objects like the Sun but comets are among the coldest objects in the Solar system.
When comets travel through the Solar system they interact with the Solar radiation, the Solar wind and the Solar magnetic field. This produces a visible atmosphere (or coma), the characteristic cometary tail, and in some cases X-rays. These X-rays are generated on the sunward side of the comet where the Solar wind impacts the cometary atmosphere forming a bow shock.
To investigate how the X-rays are generated, an international team of scientists from 15 institutes performed experiments using the ultra-intense lasers available at the LULI facility in Paris,…

And they are “tasty”! Following our tradition (see News for the “2014 Natas”, News for the “2015 Natas”, News for the “2016 Natas”), the prizes for the winners of the image and video of 2017, the “natas” of visualization, were awarded to Fabio Cruz (left, and triple winner after wins in 2014 and 2016) and to Fabrizio Del Gaudio (right). 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.” Many congratulations to the 2017 winners! The images and videos will be posted on the team website and over the next few weeks on GoLP’s Facebook page.

The paper “Laser absorption via quantum electrodynamics cascades in counter propagating laser pulses” by Thomas Grismayer et al has been selected by Physics of Plasmas in the collection of Impactful articles from 2017. This is a collection of top articles of 2017. The list is comprised of most cited, most downloaded, DPP Special Issue articles, and Editor’s Picks. These articles have been made free to download for a limited time.