Laser-driven acceleration of quasi-monoenergetic, near-collimated titanium ions via a transparency-enhanced acceleration scheme

Laser-driven ion acceleration has been an active research area in the past two decades with the prospects of designing novel and compact ion accelerators. Many potential applications in science and industry require high-quality, energetic ion beams with low divergence and narrow energy spread. Intense laser ion acceleration research strives to meet these challenges and may provide high charge state beams, with some successes for carbon and lighter ions. Here we demonstrate the generation of well collimated, quasi-monoenergetic titanium ions with energies ∼145 and 180 MeV in experiments using the high-contrast(<10-9) and high-intensity (6× 1020 W cm-2) Trident laser and ultra-Thin (∼100 nm) titanium foil targets. Numerical simulations show that the foils become transparent to the laser pulses, undergoing relativistically induced transparency (RIT), resulting in a two-stage acceleration process which lasts until ∼2 ps after the onset of RIT. Such long acceleration time in the self-generated electric fields in the expanding plasma enables the formation of the quasi-monoenergetic peaks. This work contributes to the better understanding of the acceleration of heavier ions in the RIT regime, towards the development of next generation laser-based ion accelerators for various applications

Axion-like-particle search with high-intensity lasers

We study ALP-photon-conversion within strong inhomogeneous electromagnetic fields as provided by contemporary high-intensity laser systems. We observe that probe photons traversing the focal spot of a superposition of Gaussian beams of a single high-intensity laser at fundamental and frequency-doubled mode can experience a frequency shift due to their intermittent propagation as axion-like-particles. This process is strongly peaked for resonant masses on the order of the involved laser frequencies. Purely laser-based experiments in optical setups are sensitive to ALPs in the $\mathrm{eV}$ mass range and can thus complement ALP searches at dipole magnets.Comment: 25 pages, 2 figure

Expression of the BCR-ABL1 Gene in Patients with Chronic Myeloproliferative Diseases with Signs of Progression

Background. The V617F mutation of JAK2 is known to manifest in Ph-negative chronic myeloproliferative diseases (cMPD), such as polycythemia vera, thrombocythemia, and myelofibrosis. These diseases not infrequently advance into more aggressive forms up to acute leukemia. As the progression mechanism is still unknown, its study retains a high priority. JAK2 carrying the V617F mutation is believed to cause constant activation of V(D)J recombinase in myeloid tumor cells in cMPD patients. Aberrant activation of V(D)J recombinase in tumor cells in cMPD patients can lead to t(9;22)(q34;q11) chromosomal rearrangement. Aim. To study the expression of BCR-ABL1 resulting from translocation t(9;22)(q34;q11) in cMPD patients at the progression stage in order to test the suggested hypothesis. Materials & Methods. The BCR–ABL1 expression was assessed in peripheral blood granulocytes in cMPD patients by real-time PCR. The JAK2 V617F mutation was identified by quantitative allele-specific PCR. The JAK2 exon 12 mutations were determined using Sanger direct sequencing of PCR products. Results. The BCR-ABL1 expression was discovered in 29 % of patients with cMPD progression. The BCR-ABL1 expression in these patients correlated with hepatosplenomegaly and hyperleukocytosis. Conclusion. In a significant proportion of cMPD patients the disease progression can be associated with activation of the BCR-ABL expression

Electron-positron pair creation in the electric fields generated by micro-bubble implosions

We show that electron-positron pair production from the vacuum is possible via the strong Coulomb fields generated by micro-bubble implosions induced by ultra-high intensity lasers. Even in the case where the Coulomb fields are lower than the pair creation threshold, externally injected high energy electrons or photons could be used to generate pairs

Energy-chirp compensation of laser-driven ion beams enabled by structured targets

We show using 3D simulations that the challenge of generating dense mono-energetic laser-driven ion beams with low angular divergence can be overcome by utilizing structured targets with a relativistically transparent channel and an overdense wall. In contrast to a uniform target that produces a chirped ion beam, the target structure facilitates formation of a dense electron bunch whose longitudinal electric field reverses the energy chirp. This approach works in conjunction with existing acceleration mechanisms, augmenting the ion spectra. For example, our 3D simulations predict a significant improvement for a 2 PW laser pulse with a peak intensity of $5 \times 10^{22}$ W/cm$^2$. The simulations show a mono-energetic proton peak in a highly desirable energy range of 200 MeV with an unprecedented charge of several nC and relatively low divergence that is below 10$^{\circ}$

Relativistic plasma physics in supercritical fields

Since the invention of chirped pulse amplification, which was recognized by a Nobel Prize in physics in 2018, there has been a continuing increase in available laser intensity. Combined with advances in our understanding of the kinetics of relativistic plasma, studies of laser-plasma interactions are entering a new regime where the physics of relativistic plasmas is strongly affected by strong-field quantum electrodynamics (QED) processes, including hard photon emission and electron-positron (e-e+) pair production. This coupling of quantum emission processes and relativistic collective particle dynamics can result in dramatically new plasma physics phenomena, such as the generation of dense e-e+ pair plasma from near vacuum, complete laser energy absorption by QED processes, or the stopping of an ultra-relativistic electron beam, which could penetrate a cm of lead, by a hair's breadth of laser light. In addition to being of fundamental interest, it is crucial to study this new regime to understand the next generation of ultra-high intensity laser-matter experiments and their resulting applications, such as high energy ion, electron, positron, and photon sources for fundamental physics studies, medical radiotherapy, and next generation radiography for homeland security and industry

Oncological hadrontherapy with laser ion accelerators

The use of an intense collimated beam of protons produced by a high-intensity laser pulse interacting with a plasma for the proton treatment of oncological diseases is discussed, The fast proton beam is,, produced at the target by direct laser acceleration. An appropriately designed double-layer target scheme is proposed in order to achieve high-quality proton beams, The generation of high quality proton beams is proved with particle in cell simulations. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved