ELI, hosting the most powerful, Exawatt-class laser in the world, will be able to address laser matter interaction in the hitherto unreachable intensity regime, the ultra relativistic regime >1024 W/cm2, where electrons and ions in the laser field exhibit a relativistic character.
ELI’s fundamental mission will focus on the structure of matter from solid to vacuum. It will investigate and implement a new generation of compact, laser based accelerators delivering energetic particles and radiation beams of femtosecond (10-15 s) to attosecond (10-18 s) duration. The strict synchronization between the main beam and secondary beams will open up new possibilities, extending to nonlinear QED where the field produced could polarize vacuum and challenge the vacuum critical field.
ELI will provide the society with tangible benefits ranging from improvement of oncology treatment, thorough medical imaging and fast electronics to development of new methods of nuclear waste processing.
Research papers are expected from all domains of the scientific and technological fields related to ELI, including the “Grand Scientific Challenges” that will become possible to be investigated with ELI.