TRR 18:  Relativistic Laser Plasma Dynamics

• Subject Area: Physics
• Term: from 2004 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 5486099

Innovative developments of new laser technologies ("chirped pulse amplification") during the last few years have made possible the generation of laser pulses of sub-picosecond pulse duration with an intensity of several peta-watt.
These ultra-short, super-intensive laser pulses produce energy densities higher than those existing in the sun’s core. This provides the opportunity to research fundamental physical processes and opens the possibilities of fascinating applications in a completely novel parameter-range. The laser-interaction with plasmas supplies unique conditions for the studies of processes in the relativistic regime.
The topics of this Transregional Collaborative Research Centre range from the production and use of attosecond-pulses (trillion part of a second) to the research of exotic states of matter under relativistic conditions.
In particular, in the Transregional Collaborative Research Centre new photon and particle sources will be developed and physical processes in the relativistic regime will be researched. Not only will this research result in theoretical and experimental advances regarding the development of an accelerator technology called "bubble accelerator", but in addition, proton beams will be produced which will have application to the novel analysis of processes taking place inside a laser-produced plasma.

• DFG Programme: CRC/Transregios

Completed projects

• A01 - Electron acceleration with ultrashort relativistic laser pulses (Project Heads Pretzler, Georg ;  Willi, Oswald )
• A02 - Electron laser acceleration (Project Heads Karsch, Stefan ;  Veisz, Laszlo )
• A03 - Theory of electron laser acceleration and applications (Project Head Pukhov, Alexander )
• A04 - Theory of laser-plasma physics with relativistic few cycle pulses (Project Head Pukhov, Alexander )
• A05 - Ion acceleration from laser irradiated thin foils at pulse durations ranging from 800-fs to 5-fs (Project Heads Kaluza, Malte C. ;  Schnürer, Matthias ;  Schreiber, Jörg ;  Thirolf, Peter G. )
• A06 - Quantitative measurements of electric and magnetic fields in high intensity laser matter interactions using proton imaging (Project Heads Schnürer, Matthias ;  Willi, Oswald )
• A07 - Generation and characterization of attosecond-duration X-ray pulses in the relativistic regime (Project Heads Paulus, Gerhard G. ;  Pretzler, Georg ;  Veisz, Laszlo )
• A08 - Ultrashort hard X-ray sources (Project Heads Grüner, Florian ;  Habs, Dietrich ;  Karsch, Stefan ;  Kleineberg, Ulf )
• A09 - Laser generated soft X-ray beams (Project Head Willi, Oswald )
• A10 - Time-resolved x-ray spectroscopy (Project Head Spielmann, Christian )
• A12 - Ultrafast hard X-ray generation (Project Heads Cerchez, Mirela ;  Karsch, Stefan ;  Spielmann, Christian ;  Willi, Oswald )
• B01 - Laser-plasma physics with relativistic ultra-short pulses (Project Head Willi, Oswald )
• B02 - High energy photon and particle emissions from relativistic laser-plasma-interaction (Project Head Schwoerer, Heinrich )
• B03 - Soliton formation during relativistic laser-plasma interaction (Project Heads Hochbruck, Marlis ;  Spatschek, Karl-Heinz )
• B04 - Strong magnetic fields and current filamentation (Project Heads Habs, Dietrich ;  Schramm, Ulrich )
• B05 - Advanced numerical methods for simulations of relativistic short pulse laser interactions with high density plasmas (Project Head Pukhov, Alexander )
• B06 - Measurement of magnetic field in dense relativistic plasmas (Project Heads Förster, Eckhart ;  Sauerbrey, Roland ;  Uschmann, Ingo )
• B07 - From Compton scattering to strong-field electrodynamics (Project Heads Gies, Holger ;  Paulus, Gerhard G. )
• B08 - Ionization dynamics at relativistic intensities (Project Heads Eichmann, Ulrich ;  Paulus, Gerhard G. )
• B09 - Optical probing of relativistic laser-plasma interactions (Project Heads Kaluza, Malte C. ;  Uschmann, Ingo )
• B10 - Amplification of ultra-short relativistic laser pulses by stimulated Brillouin scattering (Project Heads Lehmann, Götz ;  Müller, Carsten )
• B11 - Interactions of intense laser and relativistic particle beams (Project Head Müller, Carsten )
• B12 - Simulation of quantum-vacuum processes in ultra-intense laser fields (Project Head Ruhl, Hartmut )
• B13 - Quantum and classical effects of radiation in relativistic laser plasmas (Project Heads Elkina, Ph.D., Nina V. ;  Ruhl, Hartmut )
• C01 - Shielding of high-energy tadiation from laser accelerated particles (Project Heads Habs, Dietrich ;  Thirolf, Peter G. )
• C02 - Sub-10-fs, multi-Terawatt optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier development (Project Head Veisz, Laszlo )
• Z - Administration (Project Head Willi, Oswald )

• Applicant Institution: Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf
• Co-Applicant Institution: Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena; Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
• Participating Institution: Max-Born-Institut für Nichtlineare Optik und Kurzzeitspektroskopie; im Forschungsverbund Berlin e.V.; Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik (MPQ)
• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Oswald Willi