ELI Beamlines Collaborates With Michigan University to Study Antimatter Creation With Lasers

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ELI Beamlines, a leading laser research center has received funding from GACR (Czech Foundation Agency) to develop theoretical tools for modeling experiments at high-power laser facilities. The research will be conducted through a collaboration between ELI Beamlines and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory modeling ELI Beamlines 1 petawatt L3 HAPLS and upcoming 10 petawatts L4 laser and the University of Michigan’s upcoming 3 petawatt ZEUS laser, researchers will develop a roadmap for studying strong field quantum electrodynamics phenomena – like gamma-ray bursts or pulsar magnetospheres – which are not yet fully understood by the scientific community.

The project will be led by ELI Beamlines by Sergei Bulanov, department head of radiation physics and electron acceleration, and Gabriele Grittani, leader of the electron acceleration group. The American collaboration will be led by Alec Thomas, professor of nuclear engineering and radiological sciences at the University of Michigan, and Stepan Bulanov, a staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

At ELI Beamlines, Bulanov and Grittani will set up a team to work on focusing a laser beam on a single tiny spot to generate an extreme electromagnetic field that will accelerate particles to almost the speed of light and produce a bright gamma-radiation source. The gamma-rays colliding with a strong electromagnetic wave will transform into matter-antimatter particles creating matter from light. Researchers will use these experiments to understand how different types of antimatter can be created, and how even more extreme laser intensities can be studied.

Czech Science Foundation (GACR) and The National Science Foundation have partnered to provide funding for this and other projects in the areas of artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and plasma science. The idea of this funding is to support the excellent scientific teams in the Czech Republic and the USA.

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