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Studies of resilience of light-resonant nanoantennas in vacuum are extended to consider the case of polymer embedding. This modifies the nanoantenna’s lifetime and resonant laser pulse energy absorption. The effective resonance wavelength is shortened, the peak momentum of resonantly oscillating electrons in the nanorod is reduced by one-third, while the available lifespan of the resonance condition remains the same. This response is expected to strengthen the laser pulse induced nuclear fusion processes. Related numerical simulations were performed using particle-in-cell method in a simulation box of the size 0.223 μm3, treating the conduction electrons as strongly coupled plasma. In the modeling the polymer background was added with the experimentally measured refractive index of 1.53.

Recently, a new version of laser-induced fusion was proposed where implanted nanoantennas regulated and amplified the light absorption in the fusion target [L.P. Csernai et al., Phys. Wave Phenom. 28, 187–99 (2020)]. In this paper we estimate the nanoantenna lifetime in a dynamical kinetic model and describe how electrons are leaving the nanoantenna’s surface, and for how long the plasmonic effect is maintained. Our model successfully shows a nanorod antenna lifetime that will allow future fusion studies with top-energy short laser ignition pulses.

We study different realizations of the first-order deconfinement phase transition inside a compact star by comparing the Gibbs and Maxwell construction for the mixed phase. The hadronic sector is described within the relativistic mean field model including hyperons. The quark sector is described by the MIT bag model. We find that these two realizations lead to very different star properties, in particular, the composition of the stellar matter. We also find that for the Maxwell construction there is a sharp discontinuity in the baryon density and the electron chemical potential. We argue that a sharp jump in the electron chemical potential should lead to the redistribution of electrons and formation of strong electric fields around the discontinuity surface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]