IZEST conference report
Eminent physicists from around the world met in Glasgow at the International Zetawatt-Exawatt Science Technology conference [IZEST] hosted by the University of Strathclyde to explore new ways of investigating the fundamental structure of matter and vacuum through the use of the highest power lasers available, which is leading to a new paradigm in basic physics research.
The second IZEST Meeting was held in from 13 to 15 November 2012, to explore the possibility of using ultra intense lasers as powerful new tools to investigate the basic structure of vacuum and matter. By going beyond what is possible with today‘s conventional accelerators they plan to open out a host of new opportunities.
This challenging goal, at a time when we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the laser, musters the major laser laboratories around the world in a quest to produce laser beams with peak powers in the exawatt-zettawatt range, with pulse durations in the attosecond to zeptosecond range. Peter Higgs, who proposed the “Higgs Boson”, recently observed at CERN, gave a keynote talk at the Conference.
The IZEST project is studying the possibility to reach hundred GeV in accelerators by using laser to divide the plasma density by 10, which should lead to a reduction in the cost of the accelerator itself. One of the signs of the start up of the activity at IZEST is the announcement of a post doctoral research position.
For more information, please visit the IZEST website.
