Investigation of relativistic plasmas produced by irradiating micrometer-sized solid-density hydrogen and argon droplets with ultraintense laser pulses

• Applicants: Privatdozent Dr. Robert Evaristo Grisenti; Professor Dr. Malte C. Kaluza
• Subject Area: Optics, Quantum Optics and Physics of Atoms, Molecules and Plasmas
• Term: from 2012 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 221685002

The interaction of ultraintense laser pulses with matter allows producing conditions that are rele-vant to a variety of fundamental interdisciplinary research fields, which include modeling astrophysical objects such the interior of giant planets and low mass stars, or the development of compact proton accelerators for cancer therapy or as injectors for nuclear physics applications. However, this requires producing matter at Gbar pressures or accelerating the protons to very high energies, but this has so far proven experimentally challenging, especially because the mechanisms that govern the above phenomena at the microscopic levels are still poorly understood. Here, we will employ micrometer-sized hydrogen and argon droplets from a laminar liquid jet as ideal, mass-limited targets for novel studies of relativistic laser-plasma generation with respect to the above topics. More specifically, the combination of the unique features of the em-ployed droplets and of laser pulses from two different high-power laser systems in an energy range over more than two orders of magnitude will allow us, on the one side, advancing our knowledge of matter in the high energy density regime and, on the other side, greatly improving the laser-generated beam features, thus paving the way for the realization of next-stage tabletop-scale proton accelerators.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Participating Person: Dr. Paul Neumayer