Explanipedia

Input to the European strategy for particle physics: strong-field quantum electrodynamics Open

G. Sarri, Benjamin John King, Tom Blackburn, Anton Ilderton, Stewart Boogert , et al. · 2025

A Fully Spin and Polarization Resolved Strong Field QED Algorithm for Particle-in-Cell Codes Open

Qian Qian, D. Seipt, Thomas Grismayer, C. P. Ridgers, A. G. R. Thomas · 2025

Modern ultra-intense laser facilities can generate electromagnetic fields strong enough to accelerate particles to near-light speeds over micron-scale distances and also approach the QED critical field, resulting in highly nonlinear and re…

High-energy X-ray radiography with apodized petawatt laser beams Open

Tanner Nutting, R. Anthony, Franko Bayer, M. Burger, P. T. Campbell , et al. · 2025

We have produced laser wakefield-accelerated electron beams with energies of 2 GeV in Target Area 1 of the ZEUS facility. These electron beams oscillate in the accelerating structure that is produced in the wake of an ultrashort laser puls…

The ZEUS multi-petawatt laser system Open

A. Maksimchuk, John Nees, Bixue Hou, R. Anthony, Jun Woo Bae , et al. · 2025

The Gérard Mourou Center for Ultrafast Optical Science (CUOS) at the University of Michigan has constructed a new high-power laser user facility called ZEUS (the Zettawatt Equivalent Ultrashort pulse laser System), which is funded by the N…

Designing zettawatt-equivalent experiments for ZEUS Open

P. T. Campbell, A. Maksimchuk, Y. Ma, Qian Qian, John Nees , et al. · 2025

The Zettawatt-Equivalent Ultrashort pulse laser System (ZEUS) at the University of Michigan is a user facility supported by the National Science Foundation. The name ZEUS refers to the collision of a petawatt (PW) laser pulse with a GeV en…

Characterization and automated optimization of laser-driven proton beams from converging liquid sheet jet targets Open

G. D. Glenn, F. Treffert, H. Ahmed, S. Astbury, M. Borghesi , et al. · 2025

Compact, stable, and versatile laser-driven ion sources hold great promise for applications ranging from medicine to materials science and fundamental physics. While single-shot sources have demonstrated favorable beam properties, includin…

Bright polarised x-ray flashes from dense plasmas Open

Qian Qian, Chris Ridgers, S. V. Bulanov, Thomas Grismayer, Prokopis Hadjisolomou , et al. · 2025

Creating a plasma dominated by strong-field QED (SFQED) effects is a major goal of new multi-PW laser facilities. This is motivated by the fact that the fundamental dynamics of such plasmas is poorly understood and plays an important role …

Single-Shot Reconstruction of Electron Beam Longitudinal Phase Space in a Laser Wakefield Accelerator Open

Y. Ma, M. J. V. Streeter, F. Albert, Nicola Bourgeois, Silvia Cipiccia , et al. · 2025

We report on a single-shot longitudinal phase-space reconstruction diagnostic for electron beams in a laser wakefield accelerator via the experimental observation of distinct periodic modulations in the angularly resolved spectra. Such mod…

Multi-messenger dynamic imaging of laser-driven shocks in water using a plasma wakefield accelerator Open

Mario Balcazar, Hai-En Tsai, Tobias Ostermayr, P. T. Campbell, Qiang Chen , et al. · 2025

Understanding dense matter hydrodynamics is critical for predicting plasma behavior in environments relevant to laser-driven inertial confinement fusion. Traditional diagnostic sources face limitations in brightness, spatiotemporal resolut…

Measurement of field generation at plasma interfaces due to fast electron beam currents from high-intensity laser–plasma interactions Open

C. Zulick, L. Willingale, A. G. R. Thomas, P. M. Nilson, A. Maksimchuk , et al. · 2025

The OMEGA EP laser at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics was used to investigate high-power, relativistically intense laser interactions with near-critical density plasmas produced using low-density CH foam targets. A proton probe beam di…

High brightness multi-MeV photon source driven by a petawatt-scale laser wakefield accelerator Open

B. Kettle, M. J. V. Streeter, Oliver J. Finlay, L. E. Bradley, R. Fitzgarrald , et al. · 2025

We present an experimental demonstration of a bright multi-MeV gamma source driven by a petawatt laser. The source generates on average $(1.2\pm0.6)\times10^9$ photons above 1 MeV per pulse, exceeding those of previous all-optical sources …

Photon acceleration of high-intensity vector vortex beams into the extreme ultraviolet Open

Kyle G. Miller, Jacob R. Pierce, Fei Li, Brandon K. Russell, W. B. Mori , et al. · 2025

Extreme ultraviolet (XUV) light sources allow for the probing of bound electron dynamics on attosecond scales, interrogation of high-energy-density matter, and access to novel regimes of strong-field quantum electrodynamics. Despite the im…

Reaching extreme fields in laser-electron beam collisions with XUV laser light Open

Brandon K. Russell, C. P. Ridgers, S. S. Bulanov, Kyle G. Miller, Christopher Arran , et al. · 2025

Plasma-based particle accelerators promise to extend the revolutionary work performed with conventional particle accelerators to studies with smaller footprints, lower costs, and higher energies. Here, we propose a new approach to access a…

Magnetic field generation in multipetawatt laser-solid interactions Open

Brandon K. Russell, Marija Vranić, P. T. Campbell, A. G. R. Thomas, K. M. Schoeffler , et al. · 2025

Magnetic field generation in ultraintense laser-solid interactions is studied over a range of laser intensities relevant to next-generation laser facilities (a0=50–500) using two-dimensional (2D) particle-in-cell simulations including stro…

Arbitrary-velocity laser pulses in plasma waveguides Open

J. P. Palastro, Kyle G. Miller, Matthew R. Edwards, A. Elliott, L. S. Mack , et al. · 2025

Space-time structured laser pulses feature an intensity peak that can travel at an arbitrary velocity while maintaining a near-constant profile. These pulses can propagate in uniform media, where their frequencies are correlated with conti…

From Airport to School to Hospital – the Story of a Rare SARS-CoV-2 Virus Variant Import Told with the Help of Patient Swabs and Wastewater-Based Epidemiology Open

Sven Sachse, Ivana Kraiselburd, Olympia E. Anastasiou, Carina Elsner, Sarah Goretzki , et al. · 2025

In December 2021, an outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 B.1.640.2 variant, potentially originating from Cameroon, was investigated among schoolchildren in Germany. The index case, an adult who had recently returned from a three-week stay in the Re…

Multi-messenger dynamic imaging of laser-driven shocks in water using a plasma wakefield accelerator Open

Mario Balcazar, A. G. R. Thomas, Hai-En Tsai, Tobias Ostermayr, Qiang Chen , et al. · 2025

Understanding dense fuel hydrodynamics is critical for predicting burning plasma behavior in laser-driven inertial confinement fusion. Traditional diagnostic sources face many limitations in brightness, spatio-temporal resolution, and thei…

Angularly resolved spectral reconstruction of x rays via filter pack attenuation Open

R. Fitzgarrald, Jason Cardarelli, P. T. Campbell, S. Fourmaux, Mario Balcazar , et al. · 2025

We have designed a new filter pack array to measure angular variations in x-ray spectra during a single shot. The filter pack was composed of repeating identical columns of aluminum and copper filters of varying thicknesses. These columns …

Stable laser-acceleration of high-flux proton beams with plasma collimation Open

M. J. V. Streeter, G. D. Glenn, S. DiIorio, F. Treffert, B. Loughran , et al. · 2025

Transversely pumped laser driven particle accelerator Open

Tanner Nutting, Nicholas Ernst, A. G. R. Thomas, Karl Krushelnick · 2025

We present a new acceleration scheme capable of accelerating electrons and ions in an underdense plasma. Transversely Pumped Acceleration (TPA) uses multiple arrays of counter-propagating laser beamlets that focus onto a central accelerati…

Bounding elastic photon-photon scattering at MeV using a laser-plasma platform Open

R. G. Watt, B. Kettle, E. Gerstmayr, B. King, A. Alejo , et al. · 2025

International audience

Plasma-based prism compressor design for high-intensity laser pulses Open

S. Avrutsky, J. P. Palastro, A. G. R. Thomas · 2025

A concept for a femtosecond pulse compressor based on underdense plasma prisms is presented. An analytical model is developed to calculate the spectral phase incurred and the expected pulse compression. A 2D particle-in-cell simulation ver…

Measuring signatures in photon angular spectra to distinguish nonlinear Compton scattering models Open

Brandon K. Russell, S. S. Bulanov, Qian Qian, Christopher Arran, Tom Blackburn , et al. · 2024

The collision of a high-energy electron beam with a laser pulse may be used to study radiation reaction and nonlinear Compton scattering among many other processes in strong-field quantum electrodynamics. Predictions from simulation and th…

The FARSIGHT Vlasov-Poisson code Open

Ryan Sandberg, Robert Krasny, A. G. R. Thomas · 2024

MeV x-ray production from a petawatt laser in the regime of a relativistically transparent preplasma, with applications to radiography Open

J. Strehlow, L. Yin, Chun-Shang Wong, Scott V. Luedtke, S. Palaniyappan , et al. · 2024

Bright sources of mega-electron volt (MeV) x-rays have many unique applications, including nuclear physics, radiation oncology, and imaging high areal density systems. High intensity lasers (>1018 W cm−2) incident on mm-thick metal targ…

Target sensitivity study of density transition-injected electrons in laser wakefield accelerators Open

C. C. Cobo, Christopher Arran, N. Bourgeois, L. Calvin, J. Carderelli , et al. · 2024

While plasma-based accelerators have the potential to positively impact a broad range of research topics, a route to application will only be possible through improved understanding of their stability. We present experimental results of a …

Photon acceleration of high-intensity vector vortex beams into the extreme ultraviolet Open

Kyle G. Miller, Jacob R. Pierce, Fei Li, Brandon K. Russell, W. B. Mori , et al. · 2024

Extreme ultraviolet (XUV) light sources allow for the probing of bound electron dynamics on attosecond scales, interrogation of high-energy-density matter, and access to novel regimes of strong-field quantum electrodynamics. Despite the im…

Lightweight, Secure and Stateful Serverless Computing with PSL Open

A. G. R. Thomas, Shubham Mishra, Kaiyuan Chen, John Kubiatowicz · 2024

We present PSL, a lightweight, secure and stateful Function-as-a-Serivce (FaaS) framework for Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs). The framework provides rich programming language support on heterogeneous TEE hardware for statically comp…

Technologies of Power and Control Open

A. G. R. Thomas · 2024

Chapter 3 begins by outlining the transhumanist conceptualization of knowledge as a uni-directional path of progress making the world ever more tractable to human reason. Transhumanists conceptualize knowledge as a guarantor of human progr…

Extended X-ray absorption spectroscopy using an ultrashort pulse laboratory-scale laser-plasma accelerator Open

B. Kettle, C. Colgan, Eva Los, E. Gerstmayr, M. J. V. Streeter , et al. · 2024

A. G. R. Thomas YOU? Author Swipe