In order to sculpt the laser pulses, the researchers developed a novel optic setup resembling a circular amphitheater with wavelength-sized "steps" used to create a time delay between concentric rings of light delivered from a high-power laser.Ī typical lens focuses each ring of light from a laser to a single distance from the lens, forming a single spot of high-intensity light. "This technology could allow electrons to be accelerated beyond what is possible with current technologies," says Dustin Froula, a senior scientist at the LLE and one of the paper's authors. The electron accelerator outlined by the researchers relies on a revolutionary technique for sculpting the shape of laser pulses so that their peaks can travel faster than the speed of light. The laser, to be named EP-OPAL, will allow the researchers to create the extremely powerful sculpted light pulses and technology described in this paper. While this research is currently theoretical, the LLE is working to make it a reality through plans to construct the highest-powered laser in the world at the LLE. "Electron accelerators provide a looking glass into a sub-atomic world inhabited by the fundamental building blocks of the universe." "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. With such a technology, scientists could perform tabletop experiments to probe the Higgs boson or explore the existence of extra dimensions and new particles that could lead to Albert Einstein's dream of a grand unified theory of the universe. In a paper published in Physical Review Letters, scientists at the University of Rochester's Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE) outlined a method to shape intense laser light in a way that accelerates electrons to record energies in very short distances: the researchers estimate the accelerator would be 10,000 times smaller than a proposed setup recording similar energy, reducing the accelerator from nearly the length of Rhode Island to the length of a dining room table. For instance, to discover the Higgs boson-the recently observed "God particle," responsible for mass in the universe-scientists at the CERN laboratory in Switzerland used a particle accelerator nearly 17 miles long.īut what if there was a way to scale down particle accelerators, producing high-energy electrons in a fraction of the distance? Accelerating electrons to such high energies in a laboratory setting, however, is challenging: typically, the more energetic the electrons, the bigger the particle accelerator.
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