Focusing and acceleration of positrons in a plasma channel with an intense laser.

Project funded by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P. (FCT) (FCT_CPCA_2021_01), grant 2021.09617.CPCA. Funded amount: EUR 12,464, as stated by the source. Runs 2022-02-16 to 2023-07-31. Keywords: positron acceleration, plasma accelerators, Quantum electrodynamics, Exact sciences, Exact sciences/Physical sciences. Source: OpenAIRE Graph, from the funder's project data (collected by OpenAIRE on 2025-07-20); national funding data, not CORDIS; selected because its keywords name quantum. Abstract given by the source: The maximum energy electron-positron colliders can achieve is limited by their size and cost. Plasma accelerators are known to sustain accelerating fields which are orders of magnitudes higher than those in conventional radio-frequency accelerators. They are expected to provide relativistic beams in shorter distances and at a reduced cost. As far as electron acceleration is concerned, a robust scheme has already been identified and is known as plasma wakefield acceleration. For instance, it enables experimentalists to obtain stable GeV electron beams from a petawatt (PW) laser on a centimetre scale. In terms of positron acceleration with a plasma-based technology, very few ideas have been suggested and tested since the first experimental proof in 2003. With this project, we intend to investigate by means of large-scale simulations a recently and promising scheme that bring forward a new method to both create and accelerate positrons. It relies on the propagation of a multi-PW laser in a plasma channel. The intense laser enables both the creation of positrons via QED processes and their acceleration in the plasma channel on a mm-scale up to a few GeVs. The access to large computational resources is a key point toward the conception of such a plasma-based positron accelerator. Indeed, the code involves the evolution of electromagnetic fields and particles on large temporal and spatial scales, as well as a Monte Carlo module to account for the relevant QED processes.

Original source.

Source: OpenAIRE Graph: projects of national funders, OpenAIRE, from the project data of Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P. (FCT). Retrieved 2026-10-28. Licence: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (OpenAIRE Graph). Selected metadata, adapted presentation; the publisher's record is authoritative. No endorsement by the source is implied. Licence: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0).

AI-assisted summary: The project focuses on the acceleration of positrons using plasma channels and intense lasers, funded by FCT with a grant of EUR 12,464 from February 2022 to July 2023. It explores plasma accelerators, which can achieve higher accelerating fields than conventional methods. Suggested technology pillar: enabling. Generated by AI from the public source text; it may contain errors and the original source is authoritative.