The experimental results from the Fireball (HRMT-62) project, achieved last year at CERN’s SPS HiRadMat facility, have now been published in Nature Communications and featured in the prominent Portuguese newspaper, Público. Our team, including Filipe Cruz, Pablo J. Bilbao, and Luis O. Silva, played a key role by providing numerical simulations that helped design the experimental platform. Under the leadership of Charles Arrowsmith and Gianluca Gregori from Oxford University, the project brought together researchers from institutions such as Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Rochester University, University of Iceland, Max Planck Institute, and IST, showcasing a strong international collaboration.
The experiment focused on generating high-density, quasi-neutral electron-positron plasmas by directing a 440 GeV/c proton beam at a specially designed target. This effort marks a significant milestone, as it is the first successful creation of such plasmas in a controlled laboratory setting. The data collected revealed that the generated electron-positron beams…

A team of researchers from IST has recently published a paper entitled: “Direct laser acceleration in underdense plasmas with multi-PW lasers: A path to high-charge, GeV class electron bunches.” in the prestigious journal Physical Review Letters. The work was done in collaboration with researchers from the University of Michigan and University of California San Diego.
The most powerful lasers in the world can accelerate electrons to extreme energies, making them almost as fast as light. To accomplish this, it is necessary to ensure stable propagation of such laser pulses over tens of centimetres of plasma, which can be very challenging. By changing the acceleration strategy, the team has demonstrated how to reduce the typical acceleration distance to just a few millimetres and identified the possibility of accelerating a thousand times more particles than in other laser-based schemes. This micro-accelerator holds a potential to decrease the cost and size of…

The epp projects PILARS: Particle and intense-laser interactions, acceleration, and radiation sources and Masers in Astrophysical Plasmas (MAPs), led by PIs Lucas Ivan Iñigo Gamiz and Pablo J. Bilbao, respectively. Have been awarded a total of 40 million core hours at the newest and largest supercomputer in Portugal Deucalion jointly funded by FCT and the European HPC Joint Undertaking. Both projects were among the top 4 projects submitted. They were selected due to the relevance of the topic, the cutting-edge methods available to the researchers at GoLP, and the expertise within the group.
The projects aim to study plasmas under extreme conditions in the laboratory and astrophysics. The PILARS project will investigate novel ways of accelerating electrons to high-charge, accelerating positrons, seeding of QED cascades, and provide reproducible experimental schemes for the up-and-coming commission of next-generation petawatt laser facilities.  MAPs aims to study how plasmas can produce coherent radiation relevant to…

The computing project led by epp team member J. Vieira was selected as a Success Story of the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking. The project, titled ‘Plasma Accelerator-Based Light sources’, focused on the possible use of collective plasma motion to emit very bright radiation. Project highlights include using structured light to enhance ion acceleration (lead by epp team member C. Willim, published here in Physical Review Research); a new mechanism to mitigate the hosing instability in plasma accelerators (lead by former epp team member M. Moreira, published in Physical Review Letters); and a superradiant quasiparticle light sources in plasma accelerators , which leveraged the Radiation Diagnostic for Osiris (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpc.2022.108634, also check the video).
 

A plasma wave (in blue) excited by a laser can travel at speeds faster than the speed of light, generating bright single-cycle light…

A recent paper by GoLP researchers has been chosen as Editor’s Pick in the American Institute of Physics’ (AIP) journal Physics of Plasmas. This distinction recognizes the research’s potential impact, clarity, and overall quality. The study explores the behavior of plasmas under extremely powerful electromagnetic fields, encountered in both labs with ultra-intense lasers and around celestial objects like pulsars and magnetars. The team’s findings reveal that radiation emitted from hot plasmas in such fields can alter their equilibrium state. These results may hold the key to explaining puzzling astrophysical observations, suggesting a different behaviour for plasmas surrounding these objects than previously thought.

During a 4-year period, perform original research in the team of Prof. Luis O. Silva, combining theory and simulations (the balance will depend on the specific PhD project), and, for some of the projects, be involved in experimental collaborations. Some part of the PhD project (6 months to one year) to be developed abroad.
Possible topics are (but not limited to): QED plasma kinetics and coherent radiation processes in ultra strong fields, fireball beams and particle acceleration, HPC/AI for kinetic plasma simulations, control of laser-plasma topology and instabilities, laser fusion, exotic beyond-electroweak plasma dynamics and instabilities.

More information click here.

On Thursday 8th of February, GoLP will host a mini-workshop (in Abreu Faro, at IST) on laser-plasma interactions and applications.

The mini-workshop program is the following:
GoLP Mini-workshop on ultra-intense laser-plasma interactions: from plasma-accelerators to compact light sources (and more…)
Ultra-intense laser-plasma interactions emerge when ultra-intense laser pulses (I>10^18 W/cm^2) interact with plasma. At these intensities, the collective plasma response results in structures suitable for applications ranging from compact accelerators to light sources. This mini-workshop will review key developments in this field combining experimental, theoretical and computational advances.
15:00 – Development and applications of laser-plasma acceleration,
Olle Lundh, Lund University (Sweden)
15:30 – Direct laser acceleration with the next generation of lasers,
Marija Vranic, Instituto Superior Técnico (Portugal)
16:00 – PIC simulation for the understanding of fundamental plasma process and particle/photon sources,
Xavier Davoine, CEA (France)
16:30 – Coffee break
Don’t miss it!

Image Credits: Róbert B. The picture shows the trajectories in the phase space of electrons accelerated by the direct…

Friday 23rd of January, GoLP hosted a mini-workshop on Plasma Accelerators. Here follows the program and some photos from the event.

Mini workshop on plasma accelerators
The increasing size and cost of conventional accelerators motivates the development of more compact accelerators. Because plasmas can sustain very high electric fields, plasma-based accelerators are a promising concept to miniaturize the size and cost of accelerators. Thanks to recent advances, plasma-based accelerators have been included in the 2020 update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics as a high priority research initiative. This mini-workshop will provide an overview of plasma-based accelerators for lepton and ion bunches, including recent advances in theory, simulation and experiments, and its connections to laboratory astrophysics.
Location: Anfiteatro Abreu Faro
Program:
14:00 – Coffee and cookies
14:30 – Plasma for particle acceleration, Alexander Pukhov, University of Dusseldorf, Germany
15:00 – New developments on laboratory astrophysics, Robert Bingham, University of Strathclyde and Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK
15:30 –…

FRONTIERS is a science journalism initiative funded by the European Research Council, running from 2023 to 2027. Its main goal is to facilitate collaboration between scientists and journalists which envisions a world where they can unite to communicate accurate scientific information, building public trust in science, combating misinformation, and fostering social resilience.
The Group of Lasers and Plasmas (GoLP) at Técnico is one of the institutions hosting journalists from FRONTIERs and it was highlighted in the first announcement, here. GoLP is known for its unique approach to blending theory, experiments, and simulations.. Through GoLP, journalists can access experimental, theory and simulation efforts, unique media resources, and global collaborations with institutions like UCLA, Oxford, and CERN. FRONTIERS offers a unique opportunity to contribute to a collaborative, informed society. More information on how to apply can be found here.

The recent paper lead by epp team members Bernardo M, Miguel P, Ricardo F, and Jorge V, recently published online in Nature Photonics (link here), on a novel quasiparticle light source concept, was also featured as a main news story in the November issue of the journal BBC science focus. BBC science focus is a British printed science and technology journal. Besides the printed version, the news piece is also available online here.