Light-Matter Interaction near the Schwinger Limit Using Tightly Focused Doppler-Boosted Lasers.

Strong-field quantum electrodynamics (SF QED) is a burgeoning research topic dealing with electromagnetic fields comparable to the Schwinger field (≈1.32×10^{18}  V/m). While most past and proposed experiments rely on reaching this field in the rest frame of relativistic particles, the Schwinger limit could also be approached in the laboratory frame by focusing to its diffraction limit the light reflected by a plasma mirror irradiated by a multipetawatt laser.

Spatio-temporal characterization of attosecond pulses from plasma mirrors.

Reaching light intensities above 10 W/cm and up to the Schwinger limit of the order of 10 W/cm would enable testing fundamental predictions of quantum electrodynamics. A promising - yet challenging - approach to achieve such extreme fields consists in reflecting a high-power femtosecond laser pulse off a curved relativistic mirror. This enhances the intensity of the reflected beam by simultaneously compressing it in time down to the attosecond range, and focusing it to sub-micrometre focal spots.

Achieving Extreme Light Intensities using Optically Curved Relativistic Plasma Mirrors.

This Letter proposes a realistic implementation of the curved relativistic mirror concept to reach unprecedented light intensities in experiments. The scheme is based on relativistic plasma mirrors that are optically curved by laser radiation pressure. Its validity is supported by cutting-edge three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations and a theoretical model, which show that intensities above 10^{25}  W cm^{-2} could be reached with a 3 PetaWatt (PW) laser.

WarpIV: In Situ Visualization and Analysis of Ion Accelerator Simulations.

The generation of short pulses of ion beams through the interaction of an intense laser with a plasma sheath offers the possibility of compact and cheaper ion sources for many applications--from fast ignition and radiography of dense targets to hadron therapy and injection into conventional accelerators. To enable the efficient analysis of large-scale, high-fidelity particle accelerator simulations using the Warp simulation suite, the authors introduce the Warp In situ Visualization Toolkit (WarpIV). WarpIV integrates state-of-the-art in situ visualization and analysis using VisIt with Warp, supports management and control of complex in situ visualization and analysis workflows, and implements integrated analytics to facilitate query- and feature-based data analytics and efficient large-scale data analysis.