Events at Physics |
Events on Friday, October 7th, 2016
- Physics Department Colloquium
- In silico extreme plasmas: from plasma based accelerators to pair plasmas
- Time: 3:30 pm
- Place: 2241 Chamberlin hall
- Speaker: Luis Silva, University of Lisbon
- Abstract: The advent of ultra intense lasers and particle beams is opening new frontiers in physics by triggering the exploration of scenarios with unprecedented extreme conditions dominated by relativistic effects ranging from plasma based accelerators and intense light sources to collisionless shocks and the magnetospheres of pulsars. In some of these conditions, even QED effects play an importance role, with the production of hard photons and electron-positron pairs. These scenarios are highly nonlinear and can only be fully captured via self consistent ab initio massively parallel kinetic simulations. I will revise some of the most important advances and the open challenges in the field, illustrating how large scale numerical simulations are helping us to capture in silico these extreme laboratory and astrophysical environments.
- Host: Cary Forest