Author archive for Luis O. Silva

From September 5 to September 8, some of the top experts on Extremely High-Intensity Laser Physics convened at IST for the ExHILP 2017 with more than 110 participants, 58 talks and 42 posters in a conference with lots of exciting progresses, engaging speakers, including a flash presentation of the posters and a lively poster session. The next ExHILP is already scheduled for 2019 in South Korea, and there is already a proposal to host ExHILP 2021, thus guaranteeing an exciting venue for all the developments in these topics. Thank you very much to all the participants: we look forward to welcome you in Lisbon soon!

Marija V has been awarded the 2017 John Dawson PhD Thesis Prize for her thesis “Extreme laser-matter interactions: multi-scale PIC modelling from the classical to the QED perspective” at IST. The “John Dawson Thesis prize” is awarded on a biannual basis for the best PhD thesis in the area of compact plasma based accelerators driven by ultra-intense laser pulses. The prize was awarded at the Laser and Plasma Accelerators Workshop held at Jeju Island in South Korea, from the 27th of August to the 1st of September 2017. The prize is named after John Dawson, the founder of the field of plasma based particle acceleration. He worked and lived in Los Angeles.
Marija Vranic is a Serbian researcher from Belgrade now working at IST. She obtained her undergraduate physics degree in Belgrade and moved to Portugal to do her PhD at GoLP with Luis OS on the topic of ‘’Extreme laser-matter interactions: multi-scale PIC modelling…

Frederico Fiuza, GoLP and epp team alumnus, and now staff scientist and leader of the theory group at the SLAC’s High Energy Density Science division has been awarded a prestigious DOE Early Career Research Grant to develop work at SLAC. The work will focus on particle acceleration in plasmas. More information here.

Another GoLP summer lunch meeting was held July 26, 2017 were all GoLP members had the chance to interact in the informal atmosphere of Mesa do Bairro over a selection of typical portuguese petiscos and great science discussions.

Giannandrea has been awarded the PPCF/EPS/IUPAP Poster Prize at the 44th EPS conference on Plasma Physics held in Belfast 26-30 June 2017 for his poster on “Large-scale PIC simulations of high β magnetorotational instability”. Many congratulations to Giannandrea!
 

In a recent paper in Nature Communications on “Magnetic turbulence in a table-top laser-plasma relevant to astrophysical scenarios” Kevin S has contributed with numerical simulations and physics interpretation to understand experimental results aimed at probing the magnetic turbulence driven by intense lasers, as part of a collaboration between the epp team and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. The work has been featured worldwide in many outlets, including Phys.org, Nature India, and Science Daily.

GoLP was again present at EPS DPP meeting in Belfast with many group members, most notably Marta F, Programme Committee Chair, Ricardo F, co-chair of the EPS DPP satellite workshop on high-field laser plasma interaction, and Kevin S, invited speaker. The conference was also an outstanding opportunity to meet other GoLP alumni. In the picture, from left to right, Jorge V, Manuel B (now at U Santiago Compostela), Nitin S, Marta F, Thomas G, Marija V, Giannandrea I, Elisabetta B (now at KU Leuven), Kevin S, Jayanath CPK, Ricardo F.

The recent paper by Jorge V et al. that made the cover of PRL has been selected as a Science Highlight of the Central Laser Facility, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.

Jorge V and Timon M have been invited to deliver prestigious invited talks, for work performed at GoLP, at the upcoming APS DPP meeting to be held in Milwaukee, WI, October 23-27, 2017. the APS DPP meeting is the largest scientific conference devoted to plasma physics. Jorge V will deliver a talk on “Particle acceleration and exotic light emission in structured plasma wakefields” and Timon M on “Mitigation of the hose instability in plasma-wakefield accelerators”.

The Abreu Faro Prize is awarded to the best PhD thesis in the two preceding years in the fields of Electrical Engineering, Informatics, Mathematics and Physics (and Physics Engineering). The prize is sponsored by Anacom. In 2017, a honourable mention of the the Abreu Faro Prize was awarded to Paulo Alves, epp team alumnus, now at SLAC/Stanford University. Paulo Alves presented a short video testimony and the certificate of the award was received by epp team PhD student Fabio C (in the picture, with the President of IST).