The generation of coherent extreme ultraviolet and X-ray photons by high harmonic generation from solid targets relies on the formation of a steep electron density gradient tuned by the leading edge of a relativistically intense laser pulse interacting with a bulk, solid-density target.
Light is one aspect of the Universe that, for most people, holds a deep and noticeable value in everyday life, helping them to navigate, learn from, and connect with the world around them. Yet it's not particularly difficult to imagine life without it. After all, many nonhuman animals live in lightless environments. However, as Gideon Koekoek, an associate professor of physics in the research group Gravitational Waves and Fundamental Physics
We now recognize that even ideas like "when" and "where" are subject to the laws of Einstein's relativity, and that in relativity, space and time are not absolute quantities, but rather are relative to each and every unique observer.
Star-formation will eventually end, and then the last shining stars will burn out. Galaxies will dissociate due to gravitational interactions, ejecting all masses and leaving only supermassive black holes behind. And then those black holes will decay via Hawking radiation, leaving only cold, stable, isolated bodies, from which no further energy can be extracted, all accelerating away from us within our dark energy-dominated Universe.
A core question we want to understand is where did matter come from. And then, if you know about antimatter, it's natural to ask, why is that not here? The process is not understood and we are hunting for clues as to why it happened, says Dr Christian Smorra, a physicist on the Baryon Antibaryon Symmetry Experiment (Base) at Cern.
Analogue quantum simulations are a useful tool for investigating these systems, particularly in regimes in which the applicability of numerical techniques is limited. For different simulator platforms, figures of merit include the electron bandwidth and interaction strength, temperature and the number of simulated lattice sites. Their use is further underscored by the ability to realize distinct lattice geometries, on-site degrees of freedom and by the physical observables that are accessible to experimental measurement.