Brian J. Albright

TL;DR: Quasi-monoenergetic laser-driven C5+ ions with a vastly reduced energy spread are reported, which may enable significant advances in the development of compact MeV ion accelerators, new diagnostics, medical physics, inertial confinement fusion and fast ignition.

TL;DR: In this article, Petaflop-scale simulations of the evolution of turbulent magnetic reconnection in a three-dimensional plasma indicate that it proceeds in a way that is dramatically different from classical theory.

TL;DR: VPIC has enabled previously intractable simulations in numerous areas of plasma physics, including magnetic reconnection and laser plasma interactions; next generation supercomputers like Roadrunner will enable further advances.

TL;DR: In this article, a new laser-driven ion acceleration mechanism using ultrathin targets has been identified from particle-in-cell simulations, which accelerates ions to much higher energies using laser intensities comparable to earlier target normal sheath acceleration (TNSA).

TL;DR: Using fully kinetic simulations with a Fokker-Planck collision operator, it is demonstrated that Sweet-Parker reconnection layers are unstable to plasmoids (secondary islands) for Lundquist numbers beyond S greater, similar 1000.