Extreme light infrastructure-nuclear physics: overview and perspectives

Abstract

Extreme Light Infrastructure–Nuclear Physics (ELI–NP) is a research infrastructure where the laser physics and nuclear physics scientific communities have joined their efforts to extend the research in the field of nuclear photonics to the interaction of extreme photon beams with matter. The infrastructure will provide high-power laser and gamma beams with unprecedented characteristics to be used for nuclear physics, plasma physics, quantum electrodynamics, material science research. The high–power laser system consisting of 2 x 10 PW lasers will provide pulses with intensities as high as 10²³ W/cm². First experiments with the high-power lasers at ELI–NP aim at measuring the magnitude and scaling of the achievable laser intensity via laser-gamma conversion efficiency and at studying new ion acceleration schemes to better understand and control high intensity laser–driven ion sources. A broad range of applications research program anchored in the unique capabilities of ELI–NP is currently being developed and addresses topics, such as: production of hadron therapy relevant particle beams, medical imaging research with laser x–ray sources, generation of radioisotopes of medical interest, materials in high radiation fields, industrial imaging. Currently ELI-NP is in a transition phase from implementation to operation. Following the successful commissioning of the high-power laser system and of the laser beam transport system, the commissioning of the experimental setups is now underway. The experimental setups will gradually be made available to users until the end of 2023.