By observing electrons that have been accelerated to extremely high energies, 科学家们能够解开构成宇宙的粒子的线索.
Accelerating electrons to such high energies in a laboratory setting, however, is challenging: typically, the more energetic the electrons, the bigger the particle accelerator. For instance, to discover the Higgs boson—the recently observed “God particle,负责宇宙质量的科学家们在瑞士的欧洲核子澳门威尼斯人网上赌场中心实验室使用了一个近17英里长的粒子加速器.
But what if there was a way to scale down particle accelerators, producing high-energy electrons in a fraction of the distance?
In a paper published in Physical Review Letters, scientists at the University of Rochester’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE) 概述了一种形成强激光的方法，这种方法可以加速电子在很短的距离内记录能量. The researchers estimate the accelerator would be 10,000 times smaller than a proposed setup recording similar energy, 将加速器从罗德岛的长度缩短到餐桌的长度. With such a technology, 科学家们可以通过桌面实验来探测希格斯玻色子，或者探索额外维度和新粒子的存在，这些可能会导致阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦的宇宙大统一理论的梦想.
“The higher energy electrons are required to study fundamental particle physics,” says John Palastro, a scientist at the LLE and the paper’s lead author. “电子加速器为我们提供了一个观察亚原子世界的镜子，那里居住着宇宙的基本组成部分.”
While the research is currently theoretical, LLE正在努力通过建造世界上功率最高的激光器的计划使其成为现实. The laser, to be named EP-OPAL, 能让澳门威尼斯人网上赌场人员创造出论文中描述的超强雕刻光脉冲和技术吗.
澳门威尼斯人网上赌场人员概述的电子加速器依靠一种革命性的技术来雕刻激光脉冲的形状，这样它们的峰值就可以比光速更快.
“这项技术可以让电子加速，超越现有技术的可能,” says Dustin Froula, a senior scientist at the LLE and one of the paper’s authors.
In order to sculpt the laser pulses, 澳门威尼斯人网上赌场人员开发了一种类似圆形圆形剧场的新型光学装置，其波长大小的“台阶”用于在高功率激光传递的同心圆之间产生时间延迟.
典型的透镜将激光发出的每个光圈聚焦到距透镜一段距离的地方, forming a single spot of high-intensity light. Instead of using a typical lens, however, the researchers use an exotically shaped lens, 这使得他们可以将每个光圈聚焦到离透镜不同的距离, creating a line of high intensity rather than a single spot.
当这种雕刻出来的光脉冲进入等离子体(一种由自由移动的电子和离子组成的热汤)时，就会产生尾流, similar to the wake behind a motorboat. The wake propagates at the speed of light. Much like a water skier riding in a boat’s wake, 然后电子在激光脉冲的尾流中加速.
这种“激光尾流场加速器”(LWFA)在近40年前首次被理论化, and were advanced by the invention of chirped-pulse amplification (CPA), a technique developed at the LLE by 2018 Nobel Prize recipients Donna Strickland and Gerard Mourou.
Previous versions of LWFA, however, used traditional, unstructured light pulses that propagated more slowly than the speed of light, which meant the electrons would outrun the wake, limiting their acceleration. 新的雕刻光脉冲可以实现超光速，这样电子就可以无限期地沿着尾流前进，并不断加速.
“这项工作极具创新性，将改变激光加速器的游戏规则,” says Michael Campbell, director of the LLE. “这项澳门威尼斯人网上赌场显示了与杰出的激光科学家和工程师密切合作的理论和实验等离子体物理学的价值-它代表了LLE最好的文化.”
这项澳门威尼斯人网上赌场得到了美国能源部(DOE)聚变能源科学办公室和纽约州能源澳门威尼斯人网上赌场与发展局的支持.
LLE于1970年在该大学成立，是美国能源部在全国最大的大学澳门威尼斯人网上赌场项目. As a nationally funded facility, 作为其库存管理计划的一部分，得到了国家核安全局的支持, LLE进行内爆和其他实验，探索聚变作为未来能源的可能性, to develop new laser and materials technologies, 开展与高能量密度现象相关的技术澳门威尼斯人网上赌场和开发.
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