Informatické kolokvium 24. 4. Astrophysics and fusion research with high power lasers
Informatické kolokvium 24. 4. 2018, 14:00 posluchárna D2
Kateřina Falk, Ph.D., Helmholtz Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Drážďany, Německo
Astrophysics and fusion research with high power lasers
The most powerful laser systems in the world and their uses
Abstrakt: The talk will be about speaker research on dense plasmas using some of
the most powerful lasers in the world. At the first an outline of the field will
be given, including an introduction of some of the best laser laboratories and
about applications in laboratory astrophysics and fusion technology. Thanks to
the development of high power and high energy lasers, scientists are now able to
generate extreme states of matter, accelerate particles and simulate many
astrophysical phenomena including the interiors of planets, supernova
explosions, gigantic astrophysical jets or even create antimatter. By
dynamically compressing matter, lasers can create exotic phase transitions like
the diamond rain inside Neptune or formation of rare structures like
londsdaleite, which is harder than diamond. One of the most important
applications of this research is an efficient generation of clean energy using
thermonuclear fusion, the same reactions that power all stars including our Sun.