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A laser accelerator a few millimeters long

12.10.2013

A group of researchers from several research centers in the United States has developed and created in the laboratory a prototype laser accelerator with a record efficiency. The device, which is only a few millimeters in size, has demonstrated the ability to impart energy up to 250 megaelectronvolts per meter to particles, which is in principle unattainable with traditional accelerators.

To accelerate electrons, physicists used the electromagnetic field of a laser beam perpendicular to the acceleration vector. Under normal conditions, a particle caught in electromagnetic waves will first accelerate in one direction, and then slow down and start moving in the opposite direction. To avoid this, physicists created a transparent channel of variable cross section - due to the interaction of the electromagnetic field with matter, the amplitude of the waves in it changed depending on the width of the channel, and in narrow sections the field turned out to be stronger than in wide ones.

By adjusting the length of the wide and narrow sections, as well as the initial speed of the electrons, the scientists ensured that the electron flew through the narrow sections of the channel exactly when the light waves there accelerated the particles in the right direction. By the time the wave reached the opposite phase and began to slow down the particles, the electron had time to get to a wide fragment with a smaller field amplitude and therefore slowed down less than it accelerated.

In conventional accelerators, electromagnetic waves in the microwave range are usually used to accelerate charged particles, and in principle they cannot provide an energy gain of more than a few tens of megaelectronvolts per meter. Laser technology provides an order of magnitude greater efficiency, which, according to physicists from the Stanford National Accelerator Laboratories, can lead to a revolution not only in science, but also in technology. One of the developers, Joel England, likens the transition from conventional accelerators to the laser transition from radio tubes to transistors. According to him, such a comparison is justified, in particular, because the researchers used the same technologies that are used in the production of microcircuits to manufacture accelerating channels in a transparent chip.

Compact accelerators with electron energies of tens or hundreds of megaelectronvolts can be used to generate X-rays with high energy and in the form of a highly focused coherent beam. Such radiation is now actively used in materials science, biology (to determine the crystal structure of proteins, as well as to illuminate fossilized fossils), however, X-ray lasers for these tasks often occupy entire underground complexes with tunnels several kilometers long and costing hundreds of millions of dollars. Beams with lower power and lower particle energy are used in medicine to irradiate malignant neoplasms.

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Heatwaves became more frequent and lengthened 08.07.2020

Scientists at Australia's Center of Excellence for Climate Extreme Research said that since the 1950s, global heatwaves have increased in both length and frequency across almost the entire planet.

The first comprehensive global assessment of heat waves showed that since 1950 they have become more frequent and longer across the planet. The results of the study made it possible to obtain a new metric indicator of the total amount of heat. He showed how much heat is contained in individual heat waves and seasons. As the researchers expected, this number is growing.

For example, during the hottest season in Australia, the temperature increased by a total of 80°C. In the Mediterranean, the most extreme seasons were up to 200°C hotter than the "normal" seasons.

“Over the past 70 years, we can see more and more heatwaves around the world. But now this trend has accelerated noticeably. If we add up the temperature, we can see that the heat around the world has increased by 1°C-4,5°C degrees. In some countries, it has increased by 10 ° C "- lead author of the study Sarah Perkins Kirkpatrick.

The only heat wave metric that does not show acceleration is heat wave intensity. However, this is due to the fact that there are more hot days around the world, and heat waves have become longer. When measuring the average temperature in longer thermal waves, any changes in intensity are almost imperceptible.

For example, in the Mediterranean there was a sharp surge in heat waves. In the period 1950-2017, there was an increase in heat waves by two days per season. However, between 1980 and 2017, this increased to 6,4 days per season.

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