The joint European project Effort toward a Highly Productive Programming Environment for Heterogeneous Exascale Computing (EPEEC) has conducted a test on the effective advantages of task-based parallel programming models using ZPIC as a reference High-Performance Computing (HPC) application for kinetic plasma simulations. The results from this test show a path for alternative high-efficiency parallelization of the PIC algorithm that can be straightforwardly applied in many novel architectures, including FPGA and GPGPU based accelerators.
Different task-based implementations of ZPIC have been developed based on the OmpSs-2 programming model and their performance was tested on two classical test plasma physics problems: laser wakefield acceleration and the Weibel instability. Some of the implementations demonstrated near-perfect scaling for 48 cores despite unbalanced conditions, an impressive result accomplished while retaining the code simplicity of task-based programming. More details of this study can be found here.
EPEEC’s main goal is to…

EPP member Marija V was selected by the Lisbon Academy of Sciences to join the Young Scientists Seminar (SJC), in the field of Sciences. The SJC is part of the Institute of High Studies of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences and aims to maintain a link between the Academy and young scientists of exceptional merit in order to stimulate the discussion of socially and scientifically relevant issues through the implementation of activities, such as conferences, colloquia, etc. See Técnico news for more info and for quotes from Marija on this distinction.

Next week’s seminar at University of Rochester will be given by EPP member Jorge V. The seminar will be on Wednesday 24 February 2021 at 2.30pm GMT (9.30am ET) via Zoom. The talk will be entitled “Broadband superradiance with less than a particle per wavelength”, and will focus on findings presented in a recent paper published in Nature Physics.

Marija V is scheduled to give the Oxford ALP seminar, on Monday, Feb 15th, 12:30 CET (11:30 GMT).
The topic of the talk is “Radiation-dominated electron acceleration in plasma channels using extremely intense light”.
More information here.

GoLP is celebrating the international day of Women in Science by launching a Women in Physics group led by Camilla Willim, Marija Vranic, Mariana Moreira and Chiara Badiali. The primary goal of this group is forming and strengthening connections between PhD students at IST across different physics disciplines. Other initiatives will include outreach, coaching and connection with role-model female scientists through formal and informal events. This group’s activities will complement the efforts of Gender Balance @ Técnico, that has been active for the past few years.

The article “Seeded QED cascades in counter-propagating laser pulses” published in Physical Review E in 2017 by Thomas G, Marija V, Joana M, Ricardo F and Luis OS has been selected for a Physical Review E (PRE) Spotlight on Laser-created Pair Plasmas. Each PRE Spotlight represents a small selection of articles, dealing with the same research area. The article provides an exhaustive study about the growth rates of QED cascades in counter-propagating lasers. In addition to the new analytical work developed by the authors, all recent existing theoretical models for the growth rate from other authors are shown and compared to first-principles QED-PIC simulations. A discussion about the cascade’s threshold is included, based on the analytical and numerical results. The paper is available here.

A recent paper in Physics of Plasmas by EPP members Bernardo M and Jorge V and collaborators at Rochester University, USA, entitled “Laser-plasma acceleration beyond wave breaking” has been selected by the editors of Physics of Plasmas as a featured article. This paper discusses how superluminal plasma wakefields prevent wave-breaking of strongly nonlinear plasma waves in the blowout regime and thus self-injection of electrons into the plasma wake. This leads to enhanced and cleaner accelerating fields. Our finding could be an important step to further reduce the size and improve the quality of future plasma based accelerators.

EPP members were awarded best image and video awards in the APS DPP 2020 Visual Science Communication. This contest was hosted during the 62nd Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics, held online on November 9-13 2020. Kevin S was awarded the 1st place video award, whereas Fabio C and Pablo B were awared the 2nd place image and video awards, respectively. An Honorable Mention was also awarded to Fabio C in the video category. These images and videos are representative of the research presented in talks and posters presented at APS DPP 2020.

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 to stimulate young scholars to study Quantum Technologies, thereby stimulating the development of national competences in this field.

Óscar Amaro’s Undergraduate Research session presentation “Optimal laser focusing for positron production in laser electron scattering” at this year’s Virtual APS Division of Plasma Physics (DPP) meeting was awarded the Outstanding Undergraduate Poster award. This is 62nd Annual Meeting of the APS DPP, and for the first time it was held 100% online. Ellen Zweibel, a world-renowned astrophysicist handed in the award in a virtual ceremony.