Plasma physics articles within Nature Physics

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  • News & Views |

    Inertial confinement represents one of two viable approaches for producing energy from the fusion of hydrogen isotopes. Scientists have now achieved a record yield of fusion energy when directly irradiating targets with only 28 kilojoules of laser energy.

    • Vladimir Tikhonchuk

  • News & Views |

    Tides not only affect ocean dynamics but also influence the Earth’s magnetosphere. Satellite observations have now revealed evidence of tidal effects in the Earth’s plasmasphere correlated with Moon phases.

    • Balázs Heilig

  • News & Views |

    Particles in space can be accelerated to high energy, the distribution of which follows a power law. This has now been reproduced in laboratory experiments mimicking astrophysical scenarios, which helps to understand the underlying mechanisms.

    • Giovanni Lapenta

  • Article |

    Laboratory experiments reveal the underlying mechanism of turbulent reconnection, including electron acceleration. These findings are directly relevant for studies of flares in the solar corona.

    • Yongli Ping
    • , Jiayong Zhong
    •  & Jie Zhang

  • News & Views |

    In a burning plasma, fusion-born α particles are the dominant source of heating. In such conditions, the deuterium and tritium ion energy distribution deviates from the expected thermal Maxwellian distribution.

    • Stefano Atzeni

  • Article |

    Inertial confinement fusion experiments reveal a departure from the expected hydrodynamic behaviour of a plasma when the fusion reactions become the primary source of plasma heating.

    • E. P. Hartouni
    • , A. S. Moore
    •  & A. B. Zylstra

  • Letter |

    In a plasma-based accelerator, the amplitude of the plasma wave is constrained by the wavebreaking limit. Experiments reveal features of the plasma waves at the point at which wavebreaking occurs.

    • Yang Wan
    • , Omri Seemann
    •  & Victor Malka

  • Editorial |

    The merits of conventional particle accelerators range from fundamental science to applications like radiotherapy. Plasma-based accelerators are getting up to speed and may overtake conventional ones in the near future.

  • News & Views |

    Laser accelerators promised to deliver high-energy particle beams for biomedical uses, but have struggled to meet constraints on dose control and stability. An experiment now enables translational research with proton beams at ultrahigh dose rate.

    • Leonida A. Gizzi
    •  & Maria Grazia Andreassi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A laser–plasma accelerator provides proton beams for the precise irradiation of human tumours in a mouse model. This work advances translational research with ultrahigh proton dose rates at laser-driven sources.

    • Florian Kroll
    • , Florian-Emanuel Brack
    •  & Elke Beyreuther

  • Letter
    | Open Access

    In burning plasma, alpha particles from fusion reactions are the dominant source of heating. The design choices that resulted in reaching this state in experiments at the National Ignition Facility are reported.

    • A. L. Kritcher
    • , C. V. Young
    •  & G. B. Zimmerman

  • Editorial |

    Publicly funded nuclear fusion laboratories are experiencing competition from the private sector, giving new energy to the field.

  • News & Views |

    High-order harmonics of laser pulses yield spectral components with shorter wavelength and duration and tighter focus than the original pulse. Precise spatiotemporal characterization of this radiation from a relativistic plasma mirror is relevant for ultrafast science.

    • Laszlo Veisz

  • Article |

    Relativistic mirrors are a promising tool to reach laser intensities up to the Schwinger limit. Such a mirror is created in ultra-intense laser–solid interactions, and its temporal and spatial effects on the reflected laser beam are characterized.

    • Ludovic Chopineau
    • , Adrien Denoeud
    •  & Fabien Quéré

  • Letter |

    In a beam-driven plasma wakefield accelerator, the energy spread of an electron bunch is reduced with respect to the plasma entrance, which is achieved through setting a positive energy chirp that rotates the bunches’ longitudinal phase space.

    • R. Pompili
    • , D. Alesini
    •  & A. Zigler

  • Measure for Measure |

    The assembly of the more than a million single parts of the ITER tokamak requires large-scale three-dimensional precision metrology. John Villanueva Jr gives us insights into the complexity of this project.

    • John Villanueva Jr

  • Q&A |

    The First Plasma discharge in the ITER tokamak is expected for 2025 with deuterium–tritium plasma operation ten years later. We spoke with ITER’s Director-General, Bernard Bigot, and Tim Luce, head of ITER’s Science & Operations Department, about the current status of the project and potential future directions in fusion research.

    • Stefanie Reichert

  • Editorial |

    As the construction of the ITER tokamak enters its next phase — the machine assembly — now is a good time for a recap of the history and current status of nuclear fusion research.

  • Comment |

    Since the 1950s, international cooperation has been the driving force behind fusion research. Here, we discuss how the International Atomic Energy Agency has shaped the field and the events that have produced fusion’s global signature partnership.

    • Matteo Barbarino

  • News & Views |

    A laser–plasma experiment has recreated shock waves in collisionless, weakly magnetized conditions and evidenced electron acceleration to relativistic energies, offering unprecedented insight into a long-standing problem in astrophysics.

    • Laurent Gremillet
    •  & Martin Lemoine

  • Letter |

    In laser–plasma experiments complemented by simulations, electron acceleration is observed in turbulent collisionless shocks. This work clarifies the pre-acceleration to relativistic energies required for the onset of diffusive shock acceleration.

    • F. Fiuza
    • , G. F. Swadling
    •  & H.-S. Park

  • News & Views |

    Experiments carried out at the National Ignition Facility show that the degree of degeneracy can be varied for an electron plasma. Partially degenerate electron plasmas make up most of the interiors of low mass stars, brown dwarfs and giant planets.

    • Adam J. Burgasser

  • Letter |

    Magnetic reconnection in the near-Earth magnetotail is observed to power a space storm, although suppression of magnetic reconnection caused by the Earth’s magnetic dipole was expected close to Earth.

    • Vassilis Angelopoulos
    • , Anton Artemyev
    •  & Yukinaga Miyashita

  • Letter |

    In inertial confinement fusion experiments, the effect of the overlapping laser beams on the plasma is predicted to lead to a distortion of the electron distribution function, which has now been observed in experiments.

    • David Turnbull
    • , Arnaud Colaïtis
    •  & Dustin H. Froula

  • Letter |

    Electron bunches are generated and accelerated to relativistic velocities by tunnel ionization of neutral gas species in a plasma. This represents a step towards ultra-bright, high-emittance beams in plasma wakefield accelerators. [This summary has been amended from ‘laser-plasma’ to ‘plasma wakefield’ accelerators.]

    • A. Deng
    • , O. S. Karger
    •  & B. Hidding

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