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.

GoLP members joined on sunny December 20 for another GoLP Xmas and New Year celebration. Besides having the tasty “bacalhau” and other season delicatessens there was still time for the canonical picture of (almost) all the team members in the front of IST’s Main building.

 

Many congratulations to Mariana M for being awarded the best MEFT MSc thesis in plasma physics, lasers and nuclear fusion in the academic year 2016/2017. Mariana’s thesis was on ““Influence of proton bunch and plasma parameters on the AWAKE experiment” supervised by Jorge V.

The 2nd EuPRAXIA Yearly meeting, held from November 20 to November 24 2017, was hosted at IST and organised by GoLP. This meeting gathered more than 80 participants coming from several European Countries. The goal of this project is to produce a conceptual design report for the worldwide first high energy plasma-based accelerator that can provide industrial beam quality and user areas (more information here). ​The Portuguese participation in the EuPRAXIA project is provided by GoLP. The EuPRAXIA is a project funded by the EU. The EuPRAXIA yearly meeting at IST was sponsored by IST and CGD.

Many congratulations to Rui T for his recent MSc graduation with a thesis on “Realistic modelling of vacuum polarization induced light scattering scenarios in extreme intense fields”, under the supervision of Thomas G.

Many congratulations to Mariana M for her recent MSc graduation with excellent marks. Mariana will now become a CERN fellow while pursuing her PhD degree with our team working on the AWAKE experiment under the supervision of Jorge V.

A recent paper in Physics of Plasmas by Hossein S, Jorge V, and Luis OS “Ponderomotive beatwave ion acceleration using twisted light” has been highlighted in AIP Scilight with the article “Hollow counter-propagating lasers extend the energy of optically accelerated ions” by J. H. Majors. The highlight is available here.

Our team attended the 59th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics, October 23 – 27, 2017 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin presenting several posters, delivering one invited talk in the general session, two invited talks in a mini-conference, and several contributed talks. The IOP reception was another great opportunity to have a good time with many of our friends. From left to right, Ricardo F (IST/ISCTE-IUL), Warren M (UCLA), Jorge V (IST), Thomas G (IST), Nitin S (IST), Anton H (IST/UCLA), Sam T (SLAC/Stanford), Bob B (RAL/Strathclyde), Kevin S (IST), Luis OS (IST), Frederico F (SLAC/Stanford), Xavier D (CEA), Paulo A (SLAC/Stanford), and Nuno L (LLNL).