Marco Garten

First results with the novel petawatt laser acceleration facility in Dresden

We report on first commissioning results of the DRACO Petawatt ultra-short pulse laser system implemented at the ELBE center for high power radiation sources of Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf. Key parameters of the laser system essential for efficient and reproducible performance of plasma accelerators are presented and discussed with the demonstration of 40 MeV proton acceleration under TNSA conditions as well as peaked electron spectra with unprecedented bunch charge in the 0.5 nC range.

Simulate what is measured: next steps towards predictive simulations (Conference Presentation)

Simulations of laser matter interaction at extreme intensities that have predictive power are nowadays in reach when considering codes that make optimum use of high performance compute architectures. Nevertheless, this is mostly true for very specific settings where model parameters are very well known from experiment and the underlying plasma dynamics is governed by Maxwells equations solely. When including atomic effects, prepulse influences, radiation reaction and other physical phenomena things look different. Not only is it harder to evaluate the sensitivity of the simulation result on the variation of the various model parameters but numerical models are less well tested and their combination can lead to subtle side effects that influence the simulation outcome. We propose to make optimum use of future compute hardware to compute statistical and systematic errors rather than just find the mots optimum set of parameters fitting an experiment. This requires to include experimental uncertainties which is a challenge to current state of the art techniques. Moreover, it demands better comparison to experiments as inclusion of simulating the diagnostics response becomes important. We strongly advocate the use of open standards for finding interoperability between codes for comparison studies, building complete tool chains for simulating laser matter experiments from start to end.

Simulations of ultrafast x–ray laser experiments

Simulations of experiments at modern light sources, such as optical laser laboratories, synchrotrons, and free electron lasers, become increasingly important for the successful preparation, execution, and analysis of these experiments investigating ever more complex physical systems, e.g. biomolecules, complex materials, and ultra–short lived states of matter at extreme conditions. We have implemented a platform for complete start–to–end simulations of various types of photon science experiments, tracking the radiation from the source through the beam transport optics to the sample or target under investigation, its interaction with and scattering from the sample, and registration in a photon detector. This tool allows researchers and facility operators to simulate their experiments and instruments under real life conditions, identify promising and unattainable regions of the parameter space and ultimately make better use of valuable beamtime. In this paper, we present an overview about status and future development of the simulation platform and discuss three applications: 1.) Single–particle imaging of biomolecules using x–ray free electron lasers and optimization of x–ray pulse properties, 2.) x–ray scattering diagnostics of hot dense plasmas in high power laser–matter interaction and identification of plasma instabilities, and 3.) x–ray absorption spectroscopy in warm dense matter created by high energy laser–matter interaction and pulse shape optimization for low–isentrope dynamic compression.

Computationalradiationphysics/Clara2: Clara2 First Public Release

This is the first public release of the Clara2 simulation software. It is now in version 0.1.0 - which is considered to be a beta state. Its main task, computing Thomson scattering spectra from multiple electron trajectories in parallel, works, but improvement with regard to usability, performance and code readability will come in future releases.