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Relativistic plasmas in strong electromagnetic fields exhibit distinct properties compared to classical plasmas. In astrophysical environments, such as neutron stars, white dwarfs, AGNs, and shocks, relativistic plasmas are pervasive and are expected to play a crucial role in the dynamics of these systems. Despite their significance, both experimental and theoretical studies of such plasmas have been limited. Here, we present the first ab initio high-resolution kinetic simulations of relativistic plasmas undergoing synchrotron cooling in a highly magnetized medium. Our results demonstrate that these plasmas spontaneously generate coherent linearly polarised radiation (independently of the electron/positron ratio), in a wide range of parameters, via the electron cyclotron maser instability, with radiative losses altering the saturation of this instability. This enables the plasma to continously amplify coherent radiation for significantly longer durations of time. These findings highlight fundamental differences in the behaviour of relativistic plasmas in strongly magnetized environments and align with astronomical phenomena, such as pulsar emission and Fast Radio Bursts.

Generic equilibria are derived for turbulent relaxing plasmas via an entropy-maximization procedure that accounts for the short-time conservation of certain collisionless invariants. The conservation of these collisionless invariants endows the system with a partial `memory' of its prior conditions, but is imperfect on long time scales due to the development of a turbulent cascade to small scales, which breaks the precise conservation of phase volume, making this memory imprecise. The equilibria are still determined by the short-time collisionless invariants, but the invariants themselves are driven to a universal form by the nature of the turbulence. This is numerically confirmed for the case of beam instabilities in one-dimensional electrostatic plasmas, where sufficiently strong turbulence appears to cause the distribution function of particle energies to develop a universal power-law tail, with exponent -2., Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures

There is renewed interest in direct-drive inertial confinement fusion, following the milestone December 2022 3.15 MJ ignition result on the National Ignition Facility. A key obstacle is the control of the two plasmon decay instability. Here, recent advances in inhomogeneous turbulence theory are applied to the broadband parametric instability problem for the first time. A novel dispersion relation is derived for the two plasmon decay in a uniform plasma valid under broad-bandwidth laser fields with arbitrary power spectra. The effects of temporal incoherence on the instability are then studied. In the limit of large bandwidth, the well-known scaling relations for the growth rate are recovered, but it is shown that the result is more sensitive to the spectral shape of the laser pulse rather than to its coherence time. The range of wavenumbers of the excited plasma waves is shown to be substantially broadened, suggesting that the absolute instability is favoured in regions further away from the quarter critical density. The intermediate bandwidth regime is explored numerically -- the growth rate is reduced to half its monochromatic value for laser intensities of $10^{15} \, \text{W}/\text{cm}^{2}$ and relatively modest bandwidths of $5 \, \text{THz}$. The instability-quenching properties of a spectrum of discrete lines spread over some bandwidth have also been studied. The reduction in the growth rate is found to be somewhat lower compared to the continuous case but is still significant, despite the fact that, formally, the coherence time of such a laser pulse is infinite., Comment: 22 pages, 3 figures, Accepted for publication at the Journal of Plasma Physics

We study how radiation reaction leads plasmas initially in kinetic equilibrium to develop features in momentum space, such as anisotropies and population inversion, resulting in a ring-shaped momentum distribution that can drive kinetic instabilities. We employ the Landau-Lifshiftz radiation reaction model for a plasma in a strong magnetic field, and we obtain the necessary condition for the development of population inversion, we show that isotropic Maxwellian and Maxwell-J\"uttner plasmas, with thermal temperature $T>m_e c^2/\sqrt{3}$, will develop a ring-like momentum distribution. The timescales and features for forming ring-shaped momentum distributions, the effect of collisions and non-uniform magnetic fields are disscussed, and compared with typical astrophysical and laboratory plasmas parameters. Our results show the pervasiveness of ring-like momentum distribution functions in synchrotron dominated plasma conditions., Comment: 10 pages, 3 Figures, Under consideration for PoP

Mini-magnetospheres are small ion-scale structures that are well-suited to studying kinetic-scale physics of collisionless space plasmas. Such ion-scale magnetospheres can be found on local regions of the Moon, associated with the lunar crustal magnetic field. In this paper, we report on the laboratory experimental study of magnetic reconnection in laser-driven, lunar-like ion-scale magnetospheres on the Large Plasma Device (LAPD) at the University of California - Los Angeles. In the experiment, a high-repetition rate (1 Hz), nanosecond laser is used to drive a fast moving, collisionless plasma that expands into the field generated by a pulsed magnetic dipole embedded into a background plasma and magnetic field. The high-repetition rate enables the acquisition of time-resolved volumetric data of the magnetic and electric fields to characterize magnetic reconnection and calculate the reconnection rate. We notably observe the formation of Hall fields associated with reconnection. Particle-in-cell simulations reproducing the experimental results were performed to study the micro-physics of the interaction. By analyzing the generalized Ohm's law terms, we find that the electron-only reconnection is driven by kinetic effects, through the electron pressure anisotropy. These results are compared to recent satellite measurements that found evidence of magnetic reconnection near the lunar surface.

We explore the possibility of fully replacing a plasma physics kinetic simulator with a graph neural network-based simulator. We focus on this class of surrogate models given the similarity between their message-passing update mechanism and the traditional physics solver update, and the possibility of enforcing known physical priors into the graph construction and update. We show that our model learns the kinetic plasma dynamics of the one-dimensional plasma model, a predecessor of contemporary kinetic plasma simulation codes, and recovers a wide range of well-known kinetic plasma processes, including plasma thermalization, electrostatic fluctuations about thermal equilibrium, and the drag on a fast sheet and Landau damping. We compare the performance against the original plasma model in terms of run-time, conservation laws, and temporal evolution of key physical quantities. The limitations of the model are presented and possible directions for higher-dimensional surrogate models for kinetic plasmas are discussed., Comment: title changed, accepted for publication in Machine Learning: Science and Technology, code available at https://github.com/diogodcarvalho/gns-sheet-model

Global particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations of pulsar magnetospheres are performed with a volume, surface and pair production-based plasma injection schemes to systematically investigate the transition between electrosphere and force-free pulsar magnetospheric regimes. A new extension of the PIC code OSIRIS to model pulsar magnetospheres using a two-dimensional axisymmetric spherical grid is presented. The sub-algorithms of the code and thorough benchmarks are presented in detail, including a new first-order current deposition scheme that conserves charge to machine precision. It is shown that all plasma injection schemes produce a range of magnetospheric regimes. Active solutions can be obtained with surface and volume injection schemes when using artificially large plasma injection rates, and with pair production-based plasma injection for sufficiently large separation between kinematic and pair production energy scales., Comment: 19 pages, 18 figures, submitted to A&A

An efficient approach that considers a high-intensity twisted laser of moderate energy (few J) is proposed to generate collimated proton bunches with multi-10-MeV energies from a double-layer hydrogen target. Three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations demonstrate the formation of a highly collimated and energetic ($\sim 40$ MeV) proton bunch, whose divergence is $\sim 6.5$ times smaller compared to the proton bunch driven by a Gaussian laser containing the same energy. Supported by theoretical modeling of relativistic self-focusing in near-critical plasma, we establish a regime that allows for consistent acceleration of high-energetic proton bunches with low divergence under experimentally feasible conditions for twisted drivers., Comment: To be published in Physical Review Research, Accepted 10 February 2023, link: https://journals.aps.org/prresearch/accepted/17071Y71G3a1248f257a7662520350ece007b422f

A de Branges space $\mathcal B$ is regular if the constants belong to its space of associated functions and is symmetric if it is isometrically invariant under the map $F(z) \mapsto F(-z)$. Let $K_\mathcal{B}(z,w)$ be the reproducing kernel in $\mathcal B$ and $S_{\mathcal{B}}$ be the operator of multiplication by the independent variable with maximal domain in $\mathcal B$. Loosely speaking, we say that $\mathcal B$ has the $\ell_p$-oversampling property relative to a proper subspace $\mathcal A$ of it, with $p\in(2,\infty]$, if there exists $J_{\mathcal A\mathcal B}:\mathbb{C}\times\mathbb{C}\to\mathbb{C}$ such that $J(\cdot,w)\in\mathcal B$ for all $w\in\mathbb{C}$, \begin{equation*} \sum_{\lambda\in\sigma(S_{\mathcal B}^{\gamma})} \left(\frac{\lvert J_{\mathcal{A}\mathcal{B}}(z,\lambda)\rvert}{K_\mathcal{B}(\lambda,\lambda)^{1/2}}\right)^{p/(p-1)} <\infty, \quad\text{and}\quad F(z) = \sum_{\lambda\in\sigma(S_{\mathcal B}^{\gamma})} \frac{J_{\mathcal{A}\mathcal{B}}(z,\lambda)}{K_\mathcal{B}(\lambda,\lambda)}F(\lambda), \end{equation*} for all $F\in\mathcal A$ and almost every self-adjoint extension $S_{\mathcal B}^{\gamma}$ of $S_{\mathcal{B}}$. This definition is motivated by the well-known oversampling property of Paley-Wiener spaces. In this paper we provide sufficient conditions for a symmetric, regular de Branges space to have the $\ell_p$-oversampling property relative to a chain of de Branges subspaces of it., Comment: 18 pages, some minor corrections

Fast-exploding plasmas traveling though magnetized, collisionless plasmas can occur in a variety of physical systems, such as supernova remnants, coronal mass ejections, and laser-driven laboratory experiments. To study these systems, it is important to understand the coupling process between the plasmas. In this work, we develop a semi-analytical model of the parameters that characterize the strong collisionless coupling between an unmagnetized driver plasma and a uniformly and perpendicularly magnetized background plasma. In particular, we derive analytical expressions that describe the characteristic diamagnetic cavity and magnetic compression of these systems, such as their corresponding velocities, the compression ratio, and the maximum size of the cavity. The semi-analytical model is compared with collisionless 1D particle-in-cell simulations and experimental results with laser-driven plasmas, showing good agreement. The model allows us to provide bounds for parameters that are otherwise difficult to diagnose in experiments with similar setups.

Under the presence of strong electromagnetic fields and radiation reaction, plasmas develop anisotropic momentum distributions, characterized by a population inversion. This is a general property of collisionless plasmas when the radiation reaction force is taken into account. We study the case of a plasma in a strong magnetic field and demonstrate the development of ring momentum distributions. The timescales for ring formation are derived for this configuration. The analytical results for the ring properties and the timescales for ring formation are confirmed with particle-in-cell simulations. The resulting momentum distributions are kinetically unstable and are known to lead to coherent radiation emission in astrophysical plasmas and laboratory setups., Comment: Accepted for publication in PRL. 8 pages, 4 figures

We derive the kinetic theory of fluctuations in physically and numerically stable particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations of electrostatic plasmas. The starting point is the single-time correlations at the simulation start between the statistical fluctuations of weighted densities of macroparticle centers in the plasma particle phase-space. The single-time correlations at all time steps and in each spatial grid cell are then determined from the Laplace-Fourier transforms of the discretized Klimontovich-like equation for the macroparticles and Maxwell's equations for the fields as computed by modern PIC codes. We recover the expressions for the electrostatic field and the plasma particle density fluctuation autocorrelations spectra as well as the kinetic equations describing the average evolution of PIC-simulated plasma particles, first derived by Langdon in 1970, using a macroparticle test approach perturbing a discretized Vlasovian plasma and then averaging the obtained physical quantity over the initial macroparticle velocity distribution. We generalize and extend these results to the modern algorithms in PIC codes and using arbitrary macroparticle weights. Analytical estimates of statistical fluctuations single-time correlation amplitudes are derived as a function of the plasma simulation parameters, using the central limit theorem in the limit of a large number of macroparticles per cell. The theory is then used to analyze the ensemble averaging technique of PIC simulations where statistical averages are performed over ensembles of PIC simulations, modeling the same plasma physics problem but using different statistical realizations of the initial distribution functions of the macroparticles., Comment: 38 pages, 11 figures

In this paper we propose a methodology for the efficient implementation of Machine Learning (ML)-based methods in particle-in-cell (PIC) codes, with a focus on Monte-Carlo or statistical extensions to the PIC algorithm. The presented approach allows for neural networks to be developed in a Python environment, where advanced ML tools are readily available to proficiently train and test them. Those models are then efficiently deployed within highly-scalable and fully parallelized PIC simulations during runtime. We demonstrate this methodology with a proof-of-concept implementation within the PIC code OSIRIS, where a fully-connected neural network is used to replace a section of a Compton scattering module. We demonstrate that the ML-based method reproduces the results obtained with the conventional method and achieves better computational performance. These results offer a promising avenue for future applications of ML-based methods in PIC, particularly for physics extensions where an ML-based approach can provide a higher performance increase., Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures

Time-dependent cascades of electron-positron pairs are thought to be the main source of plasma in pulsar magnetospheres and a primary ingredient to explain the nature of pulsar radio emission, a longstanding open problem in high-energy astrophysics. During these cascades - positive feedback loops of gamma-ray photon emission, via curvature radiation by TeV electrons and positrons, and pair production -, the plasma self-consistently develops inductive waves that couple to electromagnetic modes capable of escaping the pulsar dense plasma. In this work, we present an analytical description of pair cascades relevant in pulsars, including their onset, exponential growth and saturation stages. We study this problem in the case of a background linear electric field, relevant in pulsar polar caps, and using an heuristic model of the pair production process. The analytical results are confirmed with particle-in-cell simulations performed with OSIRIS including heuristic pair production., Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in PoP

We give an overview of operator-theoretic tools that have recently proved useful in the analysis of boundary-value and transmission problems for second-order partial differential equations, with a view to addressing, in particular, the asymptotic behaviour of resolvents of physically motivated parameter-dependent operator families. We demonstrate the links of this rich area, on the one hand, to functional frameworks developed by S. N. Naboko and his students, and on the other hand, to concrete applications of current interest in the physics and engineering communities., Comment: 60 pages, 2 figures; a survey of recent results in the area, see also arXiv:2010.13318, arXiv:1808.03961, arXiv:1703.06220, arXiv:1510.03364

Ion-scale magnetospheres have been observed around comets, weakly-magnetized asteroids, and localized regions on the Moon, and provide a unique environment to study kinetic-scale plasma physics, in particular in the collisionless regime. In this work, we present the results of particle-in-cell simulations that replicate recent experiments on the Large Plasma Device at the University of California, Los Angeles. Using high-repetition rate lasers, ion-scale magnetospheres were created to drive a plasma flow into a dipolar magnetic field embedded in a uniform background magnetic field. The simulations are employed to evolve idealized 2D configurations of the experiments, study highly-resolved, volumetric datasets and determine the magnetospheric structure, magnetopause location and kinetic-scale structures of the plasma current distribution. We show the formation of a magnetic cavity and a magnetic compression in the magnetospheric region, and two main current structures in the dayside of the magnetic obstacle: the diamagnetic current, supported by the driver plasma flow, and the current associated to the magnetopause, supported by both the background and driver plasmas with some time-dependence. From multiple parameter scans, we show a reflection of the magnetic compression, bounded by the length of the driver plasma, and a higher separation of the main current structures for lower dipolar magnetic moments.

Pulsar magnetospheres are thought to be filled with electron-positron plasma generated in pair cascades. The driving mechanism of these cascades is the emission of gamma-ray photons and their conversion into pairs via Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) processes. In this work, we present 2D particle-in-cell simulations of pair cascades in pulsar polar caps with realistic magnetic field geometry that include the relevant QED processes from first principles. Our results show that, due to variation of magnetic field curvature across the polar cap, pair production bursts self-consistently develop an inclination with respect to the local magnetic field that favors the generation of coherent electromagnetic modes with properties consistent with pulsar radio emission. We show that this emission is peaked along the magnetic axis and close to the polar cap edge and may thus offer an explanation for the core and conal components of pulsar radio emission., Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in ApJL

When the classical Hamburger moment problem has solutions, it has either exactly one solution or infinitely many solutions. Correspondingly, the moment problem is said to be either determinate or indeterminate. In terms of Jacobi operators, this dichotomy translates into the operator being either selfadjoint or symmetric nonselfadjoint. In this work, we present a new criterion for the determinate-indeterminate classification which hinges on bases of representation (in Akhiezer-Glazman terminology) for Jacobi operators so that the corresponding matrices have a certain structure., Comment: 23 pages. A new section was added and some minor changes were made along the text. Corrections in references and citations

We identify a mechanism for magnetic field generation in the interaction of intense electromagnetic waves and underdense plasmas. We show that Raman scattered plasma waves trap and heat the electrons preferentially in their propagation direction, resulting in a temperature anisotropy. In the trail of the laser pulse, we observe magnetic field growth which matches the Weibel mechanism due to the temperature anisotropy. We discuss the role of the initial electron temperature in our results. The predictions are confirmed with multi-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. We show how this configuration is an experimental platform to study the long-time evolution of the Weibel instability.

A uniform in space, oscillatory in time plasma equilibrium sustained by a time-dependent current density is analytically and numerically studied resorting to particle-in-cell simulations. The dispersion relation is derived from the Vlasov equation for oscillating equilibrium distribution functions, and used to demonstrate that the plasma has an infinite number of unstable kinetic modes. This instability represents a new kinetic mechanism for the decay of the initial mode of infinite wavelength (or equivalently null wavenumber), for which no classical wave breaking or Landau damping exists. The relativistic generalization of the instability is discussed. In this regime, the growth rate of the fastest growing unstable modes scales with $\gamma_T^{-1/2}$, where $\gamma_T$ is the largest Lorentz factor of the plasma distribution. This result hints that this instability is not as severely suppressed for large Lorentz factor flows as purely streaming instabilities. The relevance of this instability in inductive electric field oscillations driven in pulsar magnetospheres is discussed.

Compton scattering of gamma rays propagating in a pair plasma can drive the formation of a relativistic electron positron beam. This process is scrutinised theoretically and numerically via particle-in-cell simulations. In addition, we determine in which conditions the beam can prompt a beam-plasma instability and convert its kinetic energy into magnetic energy. We argue that such conditions can be met at the photosphere radius of bright Gamma Ray Bursts.

The shape of the anisotropic velocity distribution function, beyond the realm of strict Maxwellians can play a significant role in determining the evolution of the Weibel instability dictating the dynamics of self-generated magnetic fields. For non-Maxwellian distribution functions, we show that the direction of the maximum growth rate wavevector changes with shape. We investigate different laser-plasma interaction model distributions which show that their Weibel generated magnetic fields may require closer scrutiny beyond the second moment (temperature) anisotropy ratio characterization.

Electron-positron pair cascades developed in the extreme electromagnetic fields of neutron star polar caps are considered a key source of magnetospheric plasma in these objects. We use a simplified model that maps the Quantum Electrodynamics processes governing the pair cascades to analytically and numerically model the development of the pair cascade, and show that large-amplitude oscillations of the electric field are inductively driven by the resulting plasma. A plasma instability arises in these oscillations, and particles accelerated in growing electric field perturbations can drive secondary pair bursts that damp the large-amplitude oscillations. An analytical model is proposed to describe this interplay between the pair production and kinetic collective plasma processes. All analytical results are shown to be in excellent agreement with particle-in-cell simulations., Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

Using a generalisation of the classical notion of Dirichlet-to-Neumann map and the related formulae for the resolvents of boundary-value problems, we analyse the asymptotic behaviour of solutions to a "transmission problem" for a high-contrast inclusion in a continuous medium, for which we prove the operator-norm resolvent convergence to a limit problem of "electrostatic" type for functions that are constant on the inclusion. In particular, our results imply the convergence of the spectra of high-contrast problems to the spectrum of the limit operator, with order-sharp convergence estimates., Comment: 15 pages, 1 figure. Continuation of: arXiv:1907.08144. As accepted by: Math. Notes

Photon bursts with a wavelength smaller than the plasma inter-particle distance can drive plasma wakes via Compton scattering. We investigate this fundamental process analytically and numerically for different photon frequencies, photon flux, and plasma magnetization. Our results show that Langmuir and extraordinary modes are driven efficiently when the photon energy density lies above a certain threshold. The interaction of photon bursts with magnetized plasmas is of distinguished interest as the generated extraordinary modes can convert into pure electromagnetic waves at the plasma/vacuum boundary. This could possibly be a mechanism for the generation of radio waves in astrophysical scenarios in the presence of intense sources of high energy photons.

We develop a functional model for operators arising in the study of boundary-value problems of materials science and mathematical physics. We then provide explicit formulae for the resolvents of the associated extensions of symmetric operators in terms of the associated generalised Dirichlet-to-Neumann maps, which can be utilised in the analysis of the properties of parameter-dependent problems as well as in the study of their spectra., Comment: 25 pages, 1 figure

This paper provides decay bounds for Green matrices and generalized eigenvectors of block Jacobi operators when the real part of the spectral parameter lies in a bounded gap of the operator's essential spectrum. The case of the spectral parameter being an eigenvalue is also considered. It is also shown that if the matrix entries commute, then the estimates can be refined. Finally, various examples of block Jacobi operators are given to illustrate the results., Comment: 32 pages, no figures. Typographical errors corrected

Laser pulses of extreme intensities ($I>10^{22}~ \mathrm{W/cm^2}$) are about to become available in the laboratory. The prepulse of such a laser can induce a plasma expansion that generates a low-density channel in near-critical gas jets. We present a study of channel formation and subsequent direct laser acceleration of electrons within the pre-formed channel. Radiation reaction affects the acceleration in several ways. It first interferes with the motion of the return current on the channel walls. In addition, it reduces the radial expelling efficiency of the transverse ponderomotive force, leading to the radiative trapping of particles near the channel axis. These particles then interact with the peak laser intensity and can attain multi-GeV energies., Comment: 17 pages, 9 figures

Scattering relativistic electrons with optical lasers can result in a significant frequency upshift for the photons, potentially producing $\gamma$-rays. This is what linear Compton scattering taught us. Ultra-intense lasers offer nowadays a new paradigm where multi-photon absorption effects come into play. These effects can result in higher harmonics, higher yields and also electron-positron pairs. This article intends to discriminate the different laser scenarios that have been proposed over the past years as well as to give scaling laws for future experiments. The energy conversion from laser or particles to high-frequency photons is addressed for both the well-known counter propagating electron beam-laser interaction and for Quantum-electrodynamics cascades triggered by various lasers. Constructing bright and energetic gamma-ray sources in controlled conditions is within an ace of seeing the light of day., Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures

Using a generalization of the moment problem and the extremal properties of spectral measures corresponding to the selfadjoint extensions of a regular symmetric operator, we study point mass perturbations of spectral measures. We obtain general results for a wide class of operators and apply them to the analysis of point mass perturbations of spectral measures pertaining to Bessel and generalized Schr\"odinger operators., Comment: 33 pages, no figures. The title of the paper has change. There are changes in the introduction and the examples

We study Weyl-type perturbation theorems in the context of linear closed relations. We establish general results on perturbations for dissipative relations. In the particular case of selfadjoint relations, we study finite-rank perturbations and carry out a detailed analysis of the corresponding changes in the spectrum., Comment: 20 pages, no figures, typographical errors corrected and references added

The classical results on oversampling and undersampling (or aliasing), of functions in Paley-Wiener spaces, are generalized to the case of functions in de Branges spaces arising from regular Schr\"odinger operators with a wide range of potentials., Comment: 24 pages, no figures. Some typographical errors corrected

We present two-dimensional particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations of the fully kinetic collisionless magnetorotational instability (MRI) in weakly magnetized (high $\beta$) pair plasma. The central result of this numerical analysis is the emergence of a self-induced turbulent regime in the saturation state of the collisionless MRI, which can only be captured for large enough simulation domains. One of the underlying mechanisms for the development of this turbulent state is the drift-kink instability (DKI) of the current sheets resulting from the nonlinear evolution of the channel modes. The onset of the DKI can only be observed for simulation domain sizes exceeding several linear MRI wavelengths. The DKI, together with ensuing magnetic reconnection, activate the turbulent motion of the plasma in the late stage of the nonlinear evolution of the MRI. At steady state, the magnetic energy has an MHD-like spectrum with a slope of $k^{-5/3}$ for $k\rho<1$ and $k^{-3}$ for sub-Larmor scale ($k\rho>1$). We also examine the role of the collisionless MRI and associated magnetic reconnection in the development of pressure anisotropy. We study the stability of the system due to this pressure anisotropy, observing the development of mirror instability during the early-stage of the MRI. We further discuss the importance of magnetic reconnection for particle acceleration during the turbulence regime. In particular, consistent with reconnection studies, we show that at late times the kinetic energy presents a characteristic slope of $\epsilon^{-2}$ in the high-energy region., Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures, accepted to Astrophysical Journal

This work deals with decay bounds for Green matrices and generalized eigenvectors of block Jacobi matrices when the real part of the spectral parameter lies in an infinite gap of the operator's essential spectrum. We consider the cases of commutative and noncommutative matrix entries separately. An example of a block Jacobi operator with noncommutative entries and nonnegative essential spectrum is given to illustrate the results., Comment: 26 pages, no figures, typographical errors corrected

This work deals with the functional model for a class of extensions of symmetric operators and its applications to the theory of wave scattering. In terms of Boris Pavlov's spectral form of this model, we find explicit formulae for the action of the unitary group of exponentials corresponding to almost solvable extensions of a given closed symmetric operator with equal deficiency indices. On the basis of these formulae, we are able to construct wave operators and derive a new representation for the scattering matrix for pairs of such extensions in both self-adjoint and non-self-adjoint situations., Comment: 32 pages; This is the continuation of arXiv:1703.06220 (and formerly contained in v1); this version is as accepted by the journal (Operator Theory: Advances and Applications)

This work is devoted to dissipative extension theory for dissipative linear relations. We give a self-consistent theory of extensions by generalizing the theory on symmetric extensions of symmetric operators. Several results on the properties of dissipative relations are proven. Finally, we deal with the spectral properties of dissipative extensions of dissipative relations and provide results concerning particular realizations of this general setting., Comment: 33 pages, no figures, some errors corrected

We derive a description of the family of canonical selfadjoint extensions of the operator of multiplication in a de Branges space in terms of singular rank-one perturbations using distinguished elements from the set of functions associated with a de Branges space. The scale of rigged Hilbert spaces associated with this construction is also studied from the viewpoint of de Branges's theory., Comment: 26 pages no figures. Typos corrected. Some remarks and an example added

On the basis of the explicit formulae for the action of the unitary group of exponentials corresponding to almost solvable extensions of a given closed symmetric operator with equal deficiency indices, we derive a new representation for the scattering matrix for pairs of such extensions. We use this representation to explicitly recover the coupling constants in the inverse scattering problem for a finite non-compact quantum graph with $\delta$-type vertex conditions., Comment: 28 pages

This work studies the interplay between Green functions, the index of determinacy of spectral measures and interior finite rank perturbations of Jacobi operators. The index of determinacy quantifies the stability of uniqueness of solutions of the moment problem. We give results on the constancy of this index in terms of perturbations of the corresponding Jacobi operators. The permanence of the $N$-extremality of a measure is also studied. A measure $\mu$ is $N$-extremal when the polynomials are dense in $L_2(\mathbb{R},\mu)$. As a by-product, we give a characterization of the index in terms of cyclic vectors. We consider a new inverse problem for Jacobi operators in which information on the place where the interior perturbation occurs is obtained from the index of determinacy., Comment: 25 pages, no figures. Some typos corrected

We present an analytical and numerical study of multiple-laser QED cascades induced with linearly polarised laser pulses. We analyse different polarisation orientations and propose a configuration that maximises the cascade multiplicity and favours the laser absorption. We generalise the analytical estimate for the cascade growth rate previously calculated in the field of two colliding linearly polarised laser pulses and account for multiple laser interaction. The estimate is verified by a comprehensive numerical study of four-laser QED cascades across a range of different laser intensities with QED PIC module of OSIRIS. We show that by using four linearly polarised 30 fs laser pulses, one can convert more than 50 % of the total energy to gamma-rays already at laser intensity $I\simeq10^{24}\ \mathrm{W/cm^2}$. In this configuration, the laser conversion efficiency is higher compared with the case with two colliding lasers.

The self-consistent modeling of vacuum polarization due to virtual electron-positron fluctuations is of relevance for many near term experiments associated with high intensity radiation sources and represents a milestone in describing scenarios of extreme energy density. We present a generalized finite-difference time-domain solver that can incorporate the modifications to Maxwell's equations due to vacuum polarization. Our multidimensional solver reproduced in one-dimensional configurations the results for which an analytic treatment is possible, yielding vacuum harmonic generation and birefringence. The solver has also been tested for two-dimensional scenarios where finite laser beam spot sizes must be taken into account. We employ this solver to explore different types of laser configurations that can be relevant for future planned experiments aiming to detect quantum vacuum dynamics at ultra-high electromagnetic field intensities.

This work gives results on the interplay of the spectra of two Jacobi operators corresponding to an infinite mass-spring system and a modification of it obtained by changing one mass and one spring of the system. It is shown that the system can be recovered from these two spectra. Necessary and sufficient conditions for two sequences to be the spectra of the mass-spring system and the perturbed one are provided., Comment: 37 pages 2 figures

Laser wakefield accelerators have great potential as the basis for next generation compact radiation sources because their accelerating gradients are three orders of magnitude larger than traditional accelerators. However, X-ray radiation from such devices still lacks of tunability, especially the intensity and polarization distribution. Here we propose a tunable polarized radiation source from a helical plasma undulator based on plasma channel guided wakefield accelerator. When a laser pulse is initially incident with a skew angle relative to the channel axis, the laser and accelerated electrons experience collective spiral motions, which leads to elliptically polarized synchrotron-like radiation with flexible tunability on radiation intensity, spectra and polarization. We demonstrate that a radiation source with millimeter size and peak brilliance of $2\times10^{19} photons/s/mm^{2}/mrad^{2}/0.1%$ bandwidth can be made with moderate laser and electron beam parameters. This brilliance is comparable with the third generation of synchrotron radiation facilities running at similar photon energies, suggesting that laser plasma based radiation sources are promising for advanced applications., Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures