Lecturer: Dr. Dan Stutman
Affiliation: Extreme Light Infrastructure ‐
Nuclear Physics (ELI-NP ), Magurele,
Romania
Abstract:
The Extreme Light Infrastructure - Nuclear
Physics (ELI-NP) in Romania, will host two
world-leading photon facilities: (i) a system of
two 10 PW lasers delivering 200 J pulses with
20 fs duration and synchronizable on the fs
scale and (ii) a Gamma Beam System (GBS)
providing gamma rays with continuously
tunable energy in the range from 200 keV to
19.5 MeV, based on Inverse Compton
Scattering of laser light pulses on relativistic
electron bunches. Eight interaction chambers
in separate experimental areas will enable a
wide range of nuclear physics experiments,
including laser-laser, laser-gamma beam, and
gamma beam only based setups.
The extreme light intensity achievable with
the 10 PW ELI-NP lasers will enable producing
extreme electric fields of over 1015 V/cm, and
extreme light pressures of over 1013 bar. The
extreme laser electric field will serve to study
strong-field QED phenomena, such as non-
linear inverse Compton scattering, radiation
reaction, and Breit-Wheeler pair production.
The extreme light pressure will enable
acceleration of near solid density ion bunches
to energies of the order of 10 MeV/nucleon,
opening the possibility of producing exotic
nuclear reactions, which either require chains
of interactions, or have very low cross
sections. An example is the production of
neutron-rich nuclei around the N=126 waiting
point through fission-fusion reactions, for
studies of heavy element nucleosynthesis.
The possibility to combine in one experiment
the high power laser beams with the gamma
beam or with the relativistic electron beam
from the GBS linac is another unique feature
of the ELI-NP facility. Example of laser-gamma
beam experiments envisaged are laser driven
production of isomers followed by their
photoexcitation with the gamma beam,
studies of quantum radiation reaction, and
pair creation in vacuum.
Lastly, the narrow-bandwidthγ,n) and (γ,α)
reactions and photofission. The NRF
experiments will target nuclei which were are
beyond reach nowadays, such as in the
actinide region. The PDR and GDR studies will
address the problem of nuclear polarizability.
The measurements of photonuclear reaction
cross sections will be related to nuclear
astrophysics reaction networks and to precise
measurements of key reactions of nuclear
astrophysics interest. The photofission studies
will be related to the understanding of the
landscape of the potential barriers in the light
actinide nuclei.
The plans for Day-1 experiments at ELI-NP will
also be presented.
Additional details of the upcoming Israeli
Joint Nuclear Physics' Seminars can be
found on the following link.