INO Lab-PD

INO laboratories and activities at Physics Department (INO Lab-PD)

Three-dimensional simulations of light sail acceleration

The research activities located at the Enrico Fermi Department of Physics if the Pisa University include both theoretical and experimental work.

In  the context of high field photonics, our work has been focused on “relativistic” plasmonics in ultrastrong fields, radiation friction effects, and laser-driven ion acceleration. In the latter context, the above figure shows results of a three-dimensional simulation of the “light sail” approach  in which an ultrathin target is boosted by the radiation pressure of the laser pulse.

Experimental setup for creating and detecting Rydberg excitations in an ultra-cold gas

Experimental activities located at the Physics Department are devoted to many-body quantum physics (atom optics, Bose-Einstein condensates, quantum computation and simulation). A particular project is devoted to exploit the strong interactions between atoms excited to high-lying Rydberg states for the purposes of quantum simulation. The above figures shows the schematic of the experimental set-up.

A more detailed description of some activities can be found at the links below.

Research Staff: Macchi Andrea, Morsch Oliver

Associated Staff: Arimondo Ennio, Ciampini Donatella, Pegoraro Francesco