Abstract. Primordial or Big Bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) is one of the three strong evidences for the Big-Bang model together with the expansion of the Universe and the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation. In this study, we extend the nuclear network until sodium, to evaluate the primordial CNO abundance that could affect Population III stellar evolution. The complete network includes more than 400 reactions, out of which ≈270 reaction rates were calculated using the TALYS code. We performed a sensitivity study to identify the important reactions for CNO nucleosynthesis. We note the stability of results on Big Bang nucleosynthesis CNO production compared to previous works: CNO/H = (0.5 − 3.) × 10 −15 .

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We show a novel self-matching resonance acceleration regime for generating dense relativistic electron beams by using ultraintense circularly polarized laser pulses in near-critical density plasmas. When the self-generated quasistatic axial magnetic field is strong enough to pinch and trap thermal relativistic electrons, an overdense electron bunch is formed in the center of the laser channel. In the trapping process, the electron betatron frequencies and phases can be adjusted automatically to match the resonance condition. The matched electrons are accelerated continuously and a collimated electron beam with overcritical density, helical structure, and plateau profile energy spectrum is hence generated.

Abstract:We report on a 2.0 PW femtosecond laser system at 800 nm based on the scheme of chirped pulse amplification using Ti:sapphire crystals, which is the highest peak power ever achieved from a femtosecond laser system. Combining the index-matching cladding technique and the precise control of the time delay between the input seed pulse and pump pulses, the parasitic lasing in the final booster amplifier is effectively suppressed at the pump energy of 140 J at 527 nm. The maximum output energy from the final amplifier is 72.6 J, corresponding to a conversion efficiency of 47.2% from the pump energy to the output laser energy. The measured spectral width of the amplified output pulse from the final amplifier is 60.8 nm for the full width at half-maximum (FWHM) by controlling the spectral evolution in the amplifier chain, and the recompressed pulse duration is 26.0 fs. The technology of cross-polarized wave (XPW) is applied in a broadband front-end, and the pulse contrast is improved to ~1.5 × 10 −11 (−100 ps before the main pulse) which is measured at 83 TW power level with a repetition rate of 5 HZ. , 963-965 (1999). 13. F. Ple, M. Pittman, G. Jamelot, and J.-P. Chambaret, "Design and demonstration of a high-energy booster amplifier for a high-repetition rate petawatt class laser system," Opt. Lett. 32(3), 238-240 (2007). 14. V. Chvykov and K. Krushelnick, "Large aperture multi-pass amplifiers for high peak power lasers," Opt.Commun. 285(8), 2134-2136 (2012). 15. http://www.cargille.com. 16. D. C. Brown, S. D. Jacobs, and N. Nee, "Parasitic oscillations, absorption, stored energy density and heat density in active-mirror and disk amplifiers," Appl. Opt. 17(2), 211-224 (1978). 17. Y. Xu, X. Guo, X. Zou, Y. Li, X. Lu, C. Wang, Y. Liu, X. Liang, Y. Leng, R. Li, and Z. Xu, "Pulse temporal quality improvement in a petawatt Ti:sapphire laser based on cross-polarized wave generation," Opt.

Inverse Compton scattering between ultra-relativistic electrons and an intense laser field has been proposed as a major route to generate compact high-brightness and high-energy γ-rays. Attributed to the inherent synchronization mechanism, an all-optical Compton scattering γ-ray source, using one laser to both accelerate electrons and scatter via the reflection of a plasma mirror, has been demonstrated in proof-of-principle experiments to produce a x-ray source near 100 keV. Here, by designing a cascaded laser wakefield accelerator to generate high-quality monoenergetic e-beams, which are bound to head-on collide with the intense driving laser pulse via the reflection of a 20-um-thick Ti foil, we produce tunable quasi-monochromatic MeV γ-rays (33% full-width at half-maximum) with a peak brilliance of ~3 × 1022 photons s−1 mm−2 mrad−2 0.1% BW at 1 MeV. To the best of our knowledge, it is one order of magnitude higher than ever reported value of its kinds in MeV regime. This compact ultrahigh brilliance γ-ray source may provide applications in nuclear resonance fluorescence, x-ray radiology and ultrafast pump-probe nondestructive inspection.

In this paper, we report the recent progress on the $1~\text{PW}/0.1~\text{Hz}$ laser beamline of Shanghai Superintense Ultrafast Laser Facility (SULF). The SULF-1 PW laser beamline is based on the double chirped pulse amplification (CPA) scheme, which can generate laser pulses of 50.8 J at 0.1 Hz after the final amplifier; the shot-to-shot energy fluctuation of the amplified pulse is as low as 1.2% (std). After compression, the pulse duration of 29.6 fs is achieved, which can support a maximal peak power of 1 PW. The contrast ratio at $-80~\text{ps}$ before main pulse is measured to be $2.5\times 10^{-11}$ . The focused peak intensity is improved by optimizing the angular dispersion in the grating compressor. The maximal focused peak intensity can reach $2.7\times 10^{19}~\text{W}/\text{cm}^{2}$ even with an $f/26.5$ off-axis parabolic mirror. The horizontal and vertical angular pointing fluctuations in 1 h are measured to be 1.89 and $2.45~\unicode[STIX]{x03BC}\text{rad}$ , respectively. The moderate repetition rate and the good stability are desirable characteristics for laser–matter interactions. The SULF-1 PW laser beamline is now in the phase of commissioning, and preliminary experiments of particle acceleration and secondary radiation under 300–400 TW/0.1 Hz laser condition have been implemented. The progress on the experiments and the daily stable operation of the laser demonstrate the availability of the SULF-1 PW beamline.