Olejar Books

The scope of the Conference was to address and discuss the new developments in physics, which have been opened by the important progress in laser technology, both in the direction of ultrahigh intensities and of ultrashort pulse generation. Such developments have not only concerned and given impulse to experimental physics, but they have also triggered the theoretical exploration of completely new laser-matter interaction regimes, which are full of exciting perspectives. The irradiation of high density matter by intense laser pulses (presently on the order of a petawatt) produces a rich mixture of energetic radiation and particles: soft and hard X-rays, gamma rays, electrons, protons, heavy ions, and neutrons. Nuclear fusion and nuclear fission reactions can be effectively driven by means of strong laser pulses. Pressures as high as those existing inside the massive planets can be produced in laboratory experiments. Topics include: atomic and molecular dynamics in strong fields, high harmonic generation, coherent X-ray radiation, nonlinear plasma dynamics and relativistic optics, laser-based electron and ion acceleration, inertial confinement fusion and fast ignition, laboratory astrophysics, high energy astrophysics and cosmology, as well as applications of superstrong pulses to high energy physics.