The interaction of ultraintense laser pulses with the matter, in the form of solid foils, foams, or gas streaming from a nozzle or gas cell, leads to the generation of positively charged ions and electrons, as well as secondary X- or gamma-rays, positrons, fast neutrons or even more exotic particles.
The recent commissioning of the most powerful laser in the world, the 10 PW beamline at Extreme Light Infrastructure - Nuclear Physics, suggests that records in the energy and number of laser-accelerated protons and electrons shall be broken, which advances impressive applications such as proton cancer therapy, nuclear waste transmutation, the production of medical isotopes, the generation of ultrashort neutron pulses useful in material engineering or as radioisotope source, among other technological and societal implications.
It represents yet another step in the ability to complement the large contemporary radio-frequency accelerators, resulting in increasing the availability of aforementioned technologies tremendously. The project will conduct simulations of the relevant physical effects using mainly kinetic simulations, which require very large computational power. Therefore, to achieve high physics fidelity, it is necessary to use first-principles modelling and high-performance computing.