Contact: James Riordon
riordon@aps.org
301-919-2173
American Physical Society

Fastest Waves Ever Photographed

Caption: Images of a wakefield produced by a 30 TW laser pulse in plasma of density 2.7 x 10^18 cm^-3. The color image is a 3-D reconstruction of the oscillations, and the grey-scale is a 2-D projection of the same data. These waves show curved wavefronts, an important feature for generating and accelerating electrons that has been predicted, but never before seen.

Credit: Michael Downer, University of Texas at Austin, and Nicholas Matlis, University of Texas at Austin.

Usage Restrictions: Contact authors for reproduction permission.

Related news release: Fastest waves ever photographed