Laser Acceleration and Fundamental Physics

by Toshiki Tajima (University Munich, Germany)

Thursday 3 Jun 2010, 14:15 → 15:15 Europe/Zurich

30/7-018 - Kjell Johnsen Auditorium (CERN)

Taking judicious advantage of the relativistic dynamics of plasma under intense laser fields, Laser Wakefield Acceleration (LWA) is capable of boosting energies of electrons to multi-GeV and perhaps TeV in a compact fashion. recent experiments have demonstrated the proof-of-principle of electron acceleration by this method in the GeV range. Now it is necessary to go toward 10-100 GeV as a next step with a multi-stage accelerator. The spatiotemporal compactification and the energy density magnification by many orders pose us a challenge to keep the intense laser acceleration process under finesse control. It is also simultaneously necessary to begin a serious research on high-efficiency and high-repetition laser technology that meets the collider requirements. ICFA and ICUIL (International Committee for Ultra Intense Lasers) have started collaborating toward this goal. beyond this, intense lasers usher in a unique method of high field physics other than the collider application. We introduce a few examples of this kind. These include: the measurement of photon-photon scattering in exploring the QED fields and some low-energy fields such as dark energy, the warping of quasi-macroscopic spacetime by the intense fields, and the possibility of generating PeV gamma-photons in a laboratory and testing the special theory of relativity, feeling the texture of vacuum due to quantum gravity. mentioned will be a possible exploration of these concepts at the forthcoming ELI (Extreme Light Infrastructure) or some other facility.

Slides tajima.pdf