Physics Colloquium
Nuclear Photonics
Ishay Pomerantz
Tel Aviv University
Abstract
High power lasers have been promoted for decades for research aiming at two important applications: The compression and heating of nuclear fusion fuel, and the realization of compact particle accelerators.
The pursuit for realizing these applications has brought high power lasers to university-scale laboratories, and led to discoveries about the nature of light-matter interaction in an intensity regime never reached before.
I will overview this field of research, now known as Nuclear Photonics, and specifically tell on the interaction of relativistic light with wavelength-scale objects, on the role of the atomic number in coupling relativistic laser pulses to MeV particles, and on tests of QED in the non-linear regime.
*** Refreshments will be served from 15:00 ***
The pursuit for realizing these applications has brought high power lasers to university-scale laboratories, and led to discoveries about the nature of light-matter interaction in an intensity regime never reached before.
I will overview this field of research, now known as Nuclear Photonics, and specifically tell on the interaction of relativistic light with wavelength-scale objects, on the role of the atomic number in coupling relativistic laser pulses to MeV particles, and on tests of QED in the non-linear regime.
*** Refreshments will be served from 15:00 ***