The intense laser technology can drive the quest for fundamental physics research in a novel fashion. The International Center for Zetta- and Exawatt Science and Technology (IZEST) was created with the mission to study the possibility to produce intensities even higher than the ones predicted for ELI (0.2 Exawatt). In the time domain, extremely short pulses with duration in atto-zeptosecond associated with the large fields will be produced to reach these intensities. IZEST will be composed of the world’s top scientists in laser, plasma physics, nuclear physics, high energy physics, general relativity, and the like. We now see a concrete opportunity to carry out the first attempts at 100 GeV (and possibly TeV) laser wakefield acceleration, the search for novel fields (such as Dark Matter and Dark Energy) by copious laser photons, and acceleration of ions over cm toward TeV.
IZEST exploring is the possibility to produce Zettawatt (10^21 Watt) Pulse.
This theoretical possibility is coming into a more real project possibility, as PETAL and LMJ commit themselves toward fundamental research applications of kJ – MJ (kilojoule and megajoule) lasers. MJ systems are comprised of around 200beams of 10 – 20kJ beams. In order to realize coherent laser power at ZW, we need to have a technology that allow to compress and cohere a multiplicity of laser pulses into a single giant ultrashort pulse with peak power and intensity 1000 times what is planned with ELI.
C3 Stands for Cascaded Conversion Compression is one of the programs to boost the power.
Kilojoule lasers for 100 GeV and TeV
Going to TeV Laser Accelerator with kJ Lasers When we try to reach for 100GeV and beyond (such as TeV) whose energies are sufficiently high for t he frontier of high energy physics such as the search and study of Higgs boson, it is advantageous to employ kJ lasers.
We realize that in order to reduce the required overall electric power need ed to drive the accelerator, the average power of electricity to drive is proportional to t he square root of the plasma density. This scaling also tells us that the laser energy per stage that is required to drive the laser accelerator is inversely proportional to the density to the power of 3/2. This means that in order to reduce the average power needed by 10 the cost of the accelerator by 10, we need to decrease the plasma density by 100, while we need to increase the individual laser energy by 1000. This is therefore p referred route toward s the eventual high energy laser accelerator. It may be called the low density paradigm of laser acceleration. In addition to the above main advantage, it has a large number of superior performances as accelerator, such as less betatron radiation and consequentially reduced beam degradation, less stages and its therefore reduced beam degradation, smaller emittance degradation due to the jitters, etc. On the other hand, the expected elongation of the acceleration length is minor (as the optical connection between the stages are substantial and contributes to longer machine for higher densities) and in fact does not reflect in cost, as the cost is not much in creating gas tubes. In order to test and promote this paradigm, we need a 1 – 10kJ laser. IZEST equipped with the PETAL laser is ideally suited to first test this concept in this parameter regime. We plan to test toward 100GeV class experiments with or without staging. With sufficient amount of laser energy at PETAL and LMU, we regard that its extension can be TeV.
Annual Report to IUPAP 2012 – the biggest laser challenge
International Zettawatt-Exawatt Science and Technology (IZEST) is based on a laser-based high energy physics paradigm with new societal applications. Fundamental high energy physics has been mainly driven by the high energy fermionic colliding beam paradigm. Today the possibility to amplify lasers to extreme energy and peak power offers, in addition to possibly more compact and cheaper ways to help HEP, a suite of complementary new alternatives underpinned by single shot, large field laser pulses, that together we could call laser-based high field fundamental physics. The main mission of the International IZEST center is to muster the scientific community behind this new concept. As an example, we propose to use the laser field to probe the nonlinearity of vacuum due to nonlineairities and light-mass weak coupling fields such as the Heisenberg-Euler QED, dark matter and dark energy. We envision that seeking the non-collider paradigm without large luminosity will substantially shorten our time-line; we further accelerate the latter by adopting the existing large energy laser LIL. The accelerated research on the non-collider paradigm in TeV and beyond could stimulate innovation in collider concepts such as lower luminosity paths, novel radiation cooling, and gamma-gamma colliders. The advancement of intense short-pulsed laser energy by 2-3 orders of magnitude could provide a tremendous potential of unprecedented discoveries. These include: TeV physics, physics beyond TeV, new light-mass weak-coupling field discovery potential, nonlinear QED and QCD fields, radiation physics in the vicinity of the Schwinger field, and zeptosecond dynamic spectroscopy of vacuum. In addition, we want to take advantage of the ultrashort particle or radiation pulses produced in the femto, atto, and zeptosecond timescale to perform a new type of particle/radiation precision metrology that would help to remove the uncertainty around the neutrino speed. Finally, the TeV particles that can be produced on demand could offer a new tool to TeV astrophysics.
IZEST constitutes what may be the most audacious laser challenge sofar. It will require producing the highest peak power in the Exawatt- Zettawatt range or 10-100 times what is possible today with state-of-the-art technology. It is also part of the IZEST mission to study ways to produce ultra-high peak power pulses at high repetition rate, greater than 1kHz. To reach its bold goals, IZEST demands a complete laser technology overhaul. For instance, by learning to master plasmas, optical components with 104 times higher damage threshold could be conceived, bringing the optical component size down dramatically; square meter optics reduce to one square centimeter. These components could work at very high fluences ~5-10kJ/cm2 instead of the current limit of 1 J/cm2.
IZEST will unify the world laser and high energy community around common goals. Today, a number of exawatt class facilities in Europe and in the world are already in the planning stage, such as the ELI-Fourth Pillar, the Russian Mega Science laser, as well as possible Japanese and Chinese exawatt lasers. IZEST should serve as a common platform opened to the international scientific community with a passion for emerging scientific opportunities and the desire to participate.
The next generation of high power lasers have the potential of being combined with high energy particle beams from laser-plasma accelerators, for fundamental studies of the structure of matter.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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