AMOP Seminar

Dr. Lance Labun, Department of Physics, University of Texas at Austin

"Theory and simulation of quantum processes in plasmas with strong fields"

4:00pm, RLM 11.204

Abstract: Plasmas in the presence of ultra-high intensity laser fields offer both new applications, for example creating bright particle and radiation sources, and new access to fundamental physics at the intersection of classical and quantum dynamics. Describing the laser-plasma experiments requires a framework incorporating both analytic theory and numerical simulation. The complexity of the problem is due to the wide range of length and energy scales: Single electrons are accelerated to highly relativistic energies in less than one laser (or plasma) wavelength and radiate photons with energies spanning 8 orders of magnitude, hbaromega ~ 1 eV -- 100 MeV, including times the electron rest mass. Meanwhile, the collective dynamics of electrons and ions in the plasma is nonlinear and nonequilibrium requiring computationally intensive particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation. Addressing this challenge, I will introduce our work to systematically combine relativistic, quantum single-particle motion and radiation with classical PIC simulation.