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.
 

During the 65th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics, held on 30th of October to the 3rd of November, 2023 in Denver, CO, Frederico F was formally inducted as a Fellow of the American Physical Society in recognition of his contributions in plasma physics. His citation reads: “For leadership and fundamental contributions to the plasma physics of energetic particle generation from collisionless shocks, magnetic reconnection, and MHD instabilities.

Some of our epp team members went to Denver, CO to attend the 65th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics, held on 30th of October to the 3rd of November, 2023, and presented a talk about their recent work.
In the picture: Rui T, Pablo B, Marija V, Camilla W, Miguel P, Diogo C and Óscar A. Pablo B had an invited talk, and the rest of the members had a contributed talk on their work.
Here, some pictures from the event:

GoLP member Frederico Fiúza has been elected Fellow of the American Physical Society in recognition of his contributions in plasma physics. His citation reads: “For leadership and fundamental contributions to the plasma physics of energetic particle generation from collisionless shocks, magnetic reconnection, and MHD instabilities.”
 
The APS Fellowship Program was created to recognize members who may have made advances in physics through original research and publication or made significant innovative contributions in the application of physics to science and technology. Election to this Fellowship is limited to no more than one-half of one percent of the membership and is a recognition by peers for outstanding contributions to physics. To find out more about him you can click here.

Epp team members Bernardo Malaca, Miguel Pardal, Ricardo Fonseca,and Jorge Vieira lead a study that has determined how collective movements can emit radiation like individual particles. The article was published in the journal Nature Photonics (see article here or here).
What kind of radiation would be emitted by a superluminal particle? And how would it radiate under arbitrarily high accelerations? It is not usually possible to investigate these questions: as far as is known, there are no individual particles that can travel faster than light. Furthermore, technology limits the maximum acceleration that we can subject charged particles to in a laboratory context. What researchers have now recognized is that these exotic radiation regimes are perfectly accessible to collective excitations. An example of such collective excitement is the Mexican wave in a football stadium, where something that appears to go around the stadium is made up of people who…

The work Radiation-dominated injection of positrons generated by the nonlinear Breit-Wheeler process into a plasma channel by former epp intern Dominika M and epp members Bertrand M and Marija V is now out in the journal Physics of Plasmas. In this paper, electron-positron pair generation by an orthogonal collision of a multi-PW laser pulse and a GeV electron beam by the nonlinear Breit-Wheeler process was studied. Conditions required for positron deflection in the direction of the laser pulse propagation were analyzed, which favors injection into plasmas. Using the OSIRIS particle-in-cell framework, it was demonstrated that the radiation reaction triggered by ultra-high laser intensity plays a crucial role in the positron injection. It provides a suppression of the initial transverse momentum gained by the positrons from the Breit-Wheeler process. A fraction of the positrons that are deflected are available for direct laser acceleration in a plasma channel, providing a…

GoLP team members Carolina A, Chiara B, Bernardo M, Bernardo B, Nuno T and Mariana M went to Elba’s island in Italy to attend the 2023 edition of the European Advanced Accelerator workshop, held on 17-23 September 2023.
Bernardo M delivered a plenary talk, while Carolina A, Chiara B, Bernardo B and Nuno T presented a poster about their recent work.

GoLP team members Óscar A, Lucas A and Bernardo B attended the 8th edition of the Extreme Light Infrastructure Summer School (ELISS) in Dolní Břežany, Czechia, between August 29th and September 1st. The school intended to introduce a broad range of topics in the areas of intense laser pulses and laser-driven particle and radiation sources. The lectures were complemented by laboratory visits to the ELI Beamlines experimental halls and hands-on activities with ELI researchers. The school also included a poster competition in which Bernardo B received the 1st prize award.

GoLP team members Zahra M and Gonçalo V went to Crete Island in Greece to attend the FORTH-Onassis Foundation Lectures in Physics: Applications of Extreme Light, Heraklion, Crete, Greece, held on 2-8 July. The school was focused on extreme light, high harmonic generation, LWFA, strong field QED experiment, laser-plasma based proton & ion sources and their applications in science and society including quantum technologies, probing the microcosm, early cancer detection, and global food security challenges. The conference included a distinctive public lecture entitled “Passion Extreme Light: for the Greatest Benefit of Humankind” by Nobel prize winner Prof. Gerard Mourou (in the first picture below with Zahra and Gonçalo).