Visible matter predominantly exists in the form of plasma, be it in the interior of the stars, magnetically confined devices or intense laser generated. Laser induced plasmas can be extremely dense (ne ~ 1017-1025 cm-3), hot (Te ~ 0.1-100 keV) and short-lived (~ fs-ns). The laser produced laboratory plasmas can be over-dense (Solid Plasma Mirrors1 or special Gas-jets2) or under-dense (Gas-jets) and are home to world’s largest magnetic fields, smallest particle accelerators and tiniest sources of the shortest known attosecond XUV pulses. They also form test-beds for studying laboratory astrophysics and exotic plasma science.
In this seminar I would discuss how astrophysical conditions3,4,5 can be recreated inside the laboratory elucidating the metrology schemes that lets us probe these systems. I would present a glimpse of how space-time resolved movies in µm-fs domain can unravel rich dynamics of electrons in relativistic laser plasma accelerators4,5.
References:
1. H. Vincenti, S. Monchocé, S. Kahaly, Ph. Martin and F. Quéré“Optical properties of relativistic plasma mirrors” - Nature Communications5, 3403 (2014)
2. F. Sylla, M. Veltcheva, S. Kahaly, A. Flacco and V. Malka “Development and characterizarion of very dense submillemetric gas jets for laser plasma interaction” - Review of Scientific Instruments 83, 033507 (2012)
3. F. Sylla, A. Flacco, S. Kahaly, M. Veltcheva, E. d’Humières, I. Andriyash, V. Tikhonchuk and V. Malka “Short intense laser pulse collapse in near-critical plasma ”- Physical review letters 110, 085001 (2013)
4. S. Kahaly, S. Mondal,G. Ravindra Kumar, S. Sengupta, A. Das and P.K. Kaw “Polarimetric detection of laser induced ultrashort magnetic pulses in overdense plasma” - Physics of Plasmas 16, 043114 (2009)
5. A. Flacco, J. Vieira, A. Lifschitz, F. Sylla, S. Kahaly, M. Veltcheva, L. O. Silva and V. Malka “Persistence of magnetic driven by relativistic electrons in a plasma”- Nature Physics 11, 409-413 (2015)