We are delighted to welcome Professor Stuart Mangles to the school as part of our 2024-25 Sir Harrie Massey Colloquia Series.

Professor Mangles will deliver a lecture titled 'Probing Extreme Physics with Plasma Accelerators'. An abstract and biography can be found below.

Abstract:

Plasma based particle accelerators driven by high intensity lasers have real potential to be probes of physics in extreme conditions. They are sources of electron, X-ray and gamma-ray beams with unique properties and, crucially, are readily synchronised with laser driven experiments which can re-create extreme conditions usually only found in astrophysical environments.  

This talk will describe the key properties that make laser wakefield accelerators powerful tools for discovery, and highlight three areas where we are making progress in the study of extreme conditions: extreme electromagnetic fields, extreme temperatures and photon-photon physics.

Biography:

Stuart Mangles is a Professor of Laser-Plasma Physics at Imperial College London in the UK. He has been involved in laser-plasma based accelerator research for almost two decades. He was involved in work in the early 2000s that helped to establish laser wakefield accelerators as useful sources of electron beams and X-rays. As a holder of a Royal Society University Research Fellowship he studied the non-linear dynamics of laser wakefield accelerators and how using more powerful lasers can increase the electron beam energy and X-ray brightness. More recently his research has focussed on developing laser wakefield accelerators as tools to study extreme conditions, including ultrafast X-ray imaging and spectroscopy of dense plasmas, and in the emerging area of strong field QED; work that has been supported by the ERC. Much of his research uses the 200 TW dual beam Gemini laser at the UK’s central laser facility, but over the years he has also developed successful collaborations with laser labs across Europe and the USA. 

Click here to register.