Student AIM Seminar Seminar

The last 20 years have seen exciting growth in the field of plasma based particle accelerators. Since 2004 and the first experimental evidence of particle acceleration in the so called 'blowout regime', quality of laser-plasma produced particle beams has been steadily improving. Simulating the physics of plasmas in this regime becomes challenging as the physics are highly nonlinear. We give a brief overview of the mathematics involved and some tools commonly in use. We then present a method for plasma simulation and some movies of simple 1d plasma waves giving insight into the mechanisms involved in plasma acceleration. While we fall far short of creating superheroes, hopefully we enlighten and entertain with some simple mathematical insight into plasmas and particle accelerators.
Speaker(s): Ryan Sandberg