Current status and highlights of the ELI-NP research program

The emergence of a new era reaching beyond current state-of-the-art ultrashort and ultraintense laser technology has been enabled by the approval of around V 850 million worth of structural funds in 2011–2012 by the European Commission for the installation of Extreme Light Infrastructure(ELI).The ELI project consists of three pillars being built in the Czech Republic,Hungary,and Romania.This challenging proposal is based on recent technical progress allowing ultraintense laser fields in which intensities will soon be reaching as high as I0∼1023Wcm−2.This tremendous technological advance has been brought about by the invention of chirped pulse amplification by Mourou and Strickland.Romania is hosting the ELI for Nuclear Physics(ELI-NP)pillar in M˘agurele near Bucharest.The new facility,currently under construction,is intended to serve the broad national,European,and international scientific community.Its mission covers scientific research at the frontier of knowledge involving two domains.The first is laser-driven experiments related to NP,strong-field quantum electrodynamics,and associated vacuum effects.The second research domain is based on the establishment of a Compton-backscattering-based,high-brilliance,and intenseγbeam with Eγ≲19.5 MeV,which represents a merger between laser and accelerator technology.This system will allow the investigation of the nuclear structure of selected isotopes and nuclear reactions of relevance,for example,to astrophysics with hitherto unprecedented resolution and accuracy.In addition to fundamental themes,a large number of applications with significant societal impact will be developed.The implementation of the project started in January 2013 and is spearheaded by the ELI-NP/Horia Hulubei National Institute for Physics and Nuclear Engineering(IFIN-HH).Experiments will begin in early 2020.

Development of new diagnostics based on LiF detector for pump-probe experiments

We present new diagnostics for use in optical laser pump-X-ray Free Electron Laser(XFEL)probe experiments to monitor dimensions,intensity profile and focusability of the XFEL beam and to control initial quality and homogeneity of targets to be driven by optical laser pulse.By developing X-ray imaging,based on the use of an LiF crystal detector,we were able to measure the distribution of energy inside a hard X-ray beam with unprecedented high spatial resolution(~1 mm)and across a field of view larger than some millimetres.This diagnostic can be used in situ,provides a very high dynamic range,has an extremely limited cost,and is relatively easy to be implemented in pump-probe experiments.The proposed methods were successfully applied in pump-probe experiments at the SPring-8 Angstrom Compact free electron LAser(SACLA)XFEL facility and its potential was demonstrated for current and future High Energy Density Science experiments.

Present Status and Future Prospects of Laser Fusion Research at ILE Osaka University

Reviewed are the present status and future prospects of the laser fusionresearch at the ILE Osaka. The Gekko XII and Peta Watt laser system have been operated forinvestigating the implosion hydrodynamics, fast ignition, and the relativistic laser plasmainteractions and so on. In particular, the fast ignition experiments with cone shell target havebeen in progress as the UK and US-Japan collaboration programs. In the experiments, the implodedhigh density plasmas are heated by irradiating 500 J level peta-watt laser pulse. The thermalneutron yield is found to increase by three orders of magnitude by injecting the peta-watt laserinto the cone shell target. The Rayleigh-Taylor instability experiment results are also reviewed isthis paper.