Author archive for Luis O. Silva

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).

Thomas G, Marija V, and Luis OS attended the 1st Journal of Plasma Physics Frontiers in Plasma Physics conference in Spinetto, from May 23 to May 26 and had the opportunity to interact with epp team alumni (Frederico Fiuza also in the picture), friends, and colleagues. The conference (by invitation only) adressed pair plasmas and plasma physics in extreme (astro)physical environments, 3D magnetic cages (stellarators), and magnetokinetic self-organisation and was attended by some of the leaders in the field. Thomas G delivered two talks.

Luis OS has published an opinion article in Jornal i “Uma solução à procura de um problema?” in portuguese, motivated by the Dia dos Cientistas on May 16 and the 1939 seminal essay “The usefulness of useless knowledge” by Abraham Lexner. The article is also available here, with additional supporting material.

From April 24 to April 27, epp team members Marija V, Jorge V, and Thomas G attended SPIE Prague 2017 to deliver several invited talks on two of the conferences ongoing within SPIE Prague 2017, in particular in  Laser Acceleration of Electrons, Protons, and Ions and Research Using Extreme Light: Entering New Frontiers with Petawatt-Class Lasers.

 

Luis OS has been elected fellow of the European Physical Society at the last meeting of the EPS Council. His citation reads “For his outstanding theoretical and numerical contributions in laser plasma interaction in the relativistic regime”. In 2017, the EPS elected three new fellows, increasing the total number of fellows to 85. Luis OS is the first Portuguese physicist elected to fellow status. The EPS was founded in 1968, with 42 national “EPS Member Societies” and 2500 individual members, representing more than 120,000 members all over Europe.

Our team was invited to present some of our ongoing projects at Futurália March 30 2017 as part of the FCT presence in the event. Besides lots of visitors it was an opportunity to showcase GoLP’s new merchandise.

New collectibles and merchandise from GoLP are now available!

We have started a new initiative to foster training in plasma physics using computer simulations taking advantage of a new set of self-contained PIC codes developed by Ricardo F taking advantage of all the know-how built around Osiris. The initiative is led by Jorge V and will soon be deployed in classes at IST, and opened to all the community. More information here.

The 10 years of the European Research Council are celebrated this week all over Europe #ERC10yrs. Thank you very much for the support to our group through Accelerates (AdG2010) and InPairs (AdG2015).
 

The radio show 90 segundos de ciência, featuring science made in Portugal, has highlighted the work of the epp team on pair production with ultra intense lasers and in astrophysics (episode 73). More information here.