Plasma acceleration and new acceleration techniques constitute a research area focused on generating high-gradient particle acceleration using collective electromagnetic fields in plasmas and other nonconventional media, surpassing the gradient limits of radio-frequency cavity accelerators. This includes plasma wakefield acceleration driven by intense laser pulses or charged particle beams, beam-driven and laser-driven dielectric structures, and novel concepts such as structure-based wakefields and micro-accelerators. Research emphasizes understanding nonlinear plasma dynamics, beam loading, stability, staging, and emittance preservation, as well as developing advanced diagnostics and control schemes, with applications in compact high-energy accelerators, ultrafast radiation sources, and future collider concepts.
Scientists have developed a method for generating fast, bright proton beams using a high-repetition-rate laser-plasma accelerator. This work, published in Nature Communications, resolves several long-standing challenges and ...
Optics & Photonics
Feb 11, 2025
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107
A Hall thruster is a high-efficiency propulsion device using plasma that is used for various difficult space missions, such as SpaceX's constellation satellites, Starlink and NASA's asteroid probe, Psyche, and is one of the ...
Space Exploration
Feb 3, 2025
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99
Our home planet is bombarded with particles from outer space all the time. And while we are mostly familiar with the rocky meteorites originating from within our solar system that create fascinating shooting stars in the ...
Astronomy
Jan 29, 2025
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91
Predicting the lifetime of an electric ion thruster is notoriously difficult. You have to account for the chamber wall effects, which are not present in space environments. Researchers within several different aerospace disciplines ...
General Physics
Jan 20, 2025
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50
Scientists have come a step closer to understanding how collisionless shock waves—found throughout the universe—are able to accelerate particles to extreme speeds.
Plasma Physics
Jan 13, 2025
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117
Go faster, farther, more efficiently. That's the goal driving spacecraft propulsion engineers like Chen Cui, a new assistant professor at the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science. Cui is exploring ...
Space Exploration
Jan 6, 2025
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114
Scientists have used a pair of lasers and a supersonic sheet of gas to accelerate electrons to high energies in less than a foot. The development marks a major step forward in laser-plasma acceleration, a promising method ...
Plasma Physics
Dec 11, 2024
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68
Deep space exploration might no longer be confined to sci-fi after scientists began testing a rocket thruster which promises to boldly go further than ever before.
Space Exploration
Sep 27, 2024
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314
Laser-plasma accelerators take up less space than conventional facilities, which are sometimes kilometers long. Such compact particle sources can accelerate electron bunches efficiently, enabling X-ray lasers that fit in ...
Optics & Photonics
Aug 30, 2024
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161
Researchers at KU Leuven, the University of Colorado, Boulder, the Flatiron Institute, and the University of Wisconsin–Madison recently set out to answer a long-standing research question, specifically whether charged particles ...
