A new multi-beam, multi-PW Extreme Field Laser at UT Austin – Science and Prospects

Program Description

UT Austin is planning to upgrade its current Petawatt laser withthe addition of 3 additional high energy beams as well as twomore experimental areas. The new beams would include highenergy, nanosecond pulses, ultrahigh contrast sub-ps pulses inthe few hundred TW range as well as an ultrashort, 5 PW laserpulse. In this presentation I will outline the current plans andtimeline for this new enhanced capability and possible modelsfor community participation. I will also discuss the current statusof ultrahigh intensity science at UT Austin and the new regimesenabled by the envisioned new facility.Ultrahigh intensity lasers have become a key new technologyover the last two decades. Growing from Terawatt to Petawatt peak powers and poised to grow further,they are potential drivers for fundamental physics research as well as applied science and technology. Wehave used ultraintense lasers to reach in to the regime of relativistic plasmas, emulate astrophysical situationsin the laboratory and are poised to tackle non-perturbative quantum physics and even beyond standardmodel physics. Applications being investigated range from compact accelerators and light sources tomaterial science, energy science and medical imaging and diagnostics.Specifically, relativistic plasmas created by ultrahigh intensity lasers have been shown to be a very efficientsource of high energy electrons and ions, accelerating protons to >150 MeV proton energies, carbonions to >1 GeV, and gold ions to ~4.5 GeV. Exploiting these plasma mechanisms, we were able todemonstrate the world’s brightest neutron source with >1018 neutrons/s, as well as a high brightness, collimatedγ-ray beam with photon energies >50 MeV. I will review how these advances can be used in applicationsand outline where the field is going as we are pushing two boundaries: higher average power,driven by application requirements and the need for more data and better statistic and higher peak powerto reach new regimes of fundamental physics.Here, at intensities of I > 1022 W/cm2 the relativistic approximations are insufficient and quantum effectshave to be taken into account. Currently, there are no successful non-perturbative, dynamic quantum fieldtheories, which are necessary to calculate quantum effects in the presence of strong classical potentials.Important problems involving strong classical potentials are found in e.g. in Quantum Electrodynamics,Quantum Chromodynamics and Gravity. Example problems include: determining the Parton distributionfunction, modeling the transition of colliding hadrons to a Quark-Gluon-Plasma (QGP), or describing particlecreation in the vicinity of a black hole, electron dynamics in the magnetic field of a neutron star, andspontaneous pair creation from the quantum vacuum in the presence of a strong electromagnetic field.